X. Andrade

X. Andrade (b. Ecuador) lives in New York and works in Ecuador. A visual anthropologist (New School for Social Research) and Chairman-for-Life of Full Dollar, a company founded in 2004 that traffics in anthropology and contemporary art. Its name follows the dollarization of Ecuadorian economy in 2000. In both fields Andrade is interested in casting an ethnographic look on art scenes and institutions, and the social life of objects, images, and ideas. Due to the nature of his background in academia and public interventions, most of his activities take place outside the art establishment, but he has nevertheless taken part in Aleksandra Mir's project, Naming Tokyo, at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2003); Closing Time, Paris, Quito, Bilbao Biennial, Paris (2006); Arte Conceptual en Ecuador (Conceptual Art in Ecuador), Museo del Banco Central, Quito (2007); La Otra Feria de Arte Contemporaneo, Bogota (2008); Project Room, Arte Actual, Quito (2011); and Outpost @ The Armory Center for the Arts, Los Angeles (2011-13). His current project is The Full Dollar Collection of Contemporary Art (2009-13), a critique of institutional collecting practices formulated under the language of sign painting. A first iteration of this project is currently being shown in the neighborhood of Highland Park, Los Angeles. The collection as such will be exhibited in Quito and Guayaquil in June and July 2013. All of Full Dollar’s projects require collaboration with artists and non-artists. As a professor, he teaches at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO-Ecuador).