Angel Rafael “Ralph” Vázquez-Concepción, (b. 1981, Puerto Rico) independent curator, artist, and educator based in San Francisco, California, founder of Cranium Corporation. My practice oscillates between conceptual and appropriative practices, abstract painting, and the design of exhibitions.
My current visual work touches on the legacy of the atomic age, and the time scales of radioactive materials, which dwarf human historical timelines, and will affect all life on Earth in perpetuity. Through abstract drawing, painting, and sound works I seek to intimate with the complicated, brutal history of atomic weapons, and it’s benign potential as nuclear power. I am inspired by existentialist philosophy, experimental cinema, and the work of physicists and artists seeking to describe or represent the invisible. Also, I privilege collaboration and am a firm believer in art as a tool for education and civics.
In 2015, I obtained a Master’s in curatorial practice from the California College of the Arts. In Puerto Rico, I have curated or participated in exhibitions at the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art, the Puerto Rico Museum of Art, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, and ÁREA: Space for Projects, in Caguas, Puerto Rico. In San Francisco and Oakland, California, I have contributed exhibitions to the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Minnesota Street Project, CTRL + SHFT Collective, the Red Poppy Art House, Adobe Books Backroom Gallery, the GLBT History Museum, ProArts, and the San Francisco Art Institute.
Currently, I hold a teaching position as an 8th-grade social studies Spanish dual immersion teacher at Everett Middle School in the Mission District, San Francisco, California.
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