Rui G. Cepeda has been working as a freelance art critic and curator, as a cultural entrepreneur, manager and researcher for more than two decades.
His expertise crosses the fields occupied by arts and cultural management and production, the market for and contemporary art theory, as well as social criticism and participation, and epicure. He is the founder of the cross-cultures festival Trienal, a festival that brings together all those interests, and headed a programme of online photography exhibitions that reflects upon those fields. Previously, he oversaw the delivered of the international photography festival, Encontros de Fotografia. Art projects and cultural programmes where he showed the work of Per Barclay, Cristina Lucas, Wang Ningde, Rosângela Rennó, Jane & Louise Wilson, Kimiko Yoshida, etc., and have collaborated on putting up exhibitions by Johannes Backes, Robert Frank, Marianne Müller, Hermann Pitz, amongst others.
Rui is a regular contributor for international art magazines, newspapers, exhibitions and books: ‘José-Augusto França’ (working title, forthcoming 2025), ‘Democracy as Creative Practice: Weaving a Culture of Civic Life’ (2024) ‘Addressing the Climate Crisis: Local action in theory and practice’ (2021), ‘Art Criticism in the Age of Virtuality and Democracy’ (2018), or ‘Kharkiv School of Photography: Soviet Censorship to New Aesthetics’ (2015).
He holds a PhD in Arts and Cultural Management from The University of Manchester, a MA in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a BA in Arts Management and Events Management.