Josh T Franco (b. 1985) is an artist and art historian from West Texas who believes that art history is made by hand.
As an artist, Franco produces and exhibits at least one new body of work annually. This practice ensures that his scholarship is constantly informed by the processes of making and showing work. Franco’s art has been exhibited and supported by Co-Lab Projects, Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, WorkSpaceBrussels, Mini Art Museum, NurtureArt Gallery, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, DePauw University, HistoryMiami Museum, Studio SoHy, Elsewhere Museum, Addison Gallery of American Art, Agave Festival Marfa, Zygote Press, The Future Mpls, 516ARTS, Olga Korper Gallery, Albuquerque Museum, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Davis Gallery, Syracuse University Art Museum, Art Bridges Foundation, and the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts. Franco’s primary medium is the discipline of art history itself. Using performance and a variety of materials, he transforms the components of being an art historian—reading, writing, annotating, sketching, lecturing, looking, museum going, archival research and so on—into artworks appropriate for museums and galleries and their audiences. In 2024-2025, Franco is part of a team advising on the re-installation of the permanent collection at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.
As an art historian, Franco has presented scholarly and critical work in venues including Stanford University, College Art Association, Utrecht University, HEMI Graduate Student Initiative (Hemispheric Institute), zingmagazine, The Frick Collection, Third Text, Latino Art Now!, Joan Mitchell Foundation, OCTOBER, Independent Curators International, Gulf Coast, Latino Studies, and The Journal of Feminist Scholarship. He has written exhibition-related text for Theaster Gates, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Charlotte Hallberg, Zoe Leonard, and Joshua Saunders among others. His book, Marfa, Marfa: Rasquachismo and Minimalism in Far West Texas, is forthcoming with Duke University Press. His dissertation on the same subject was completed at Binghamton University (2016). He completed a BA in Art History at Southwestern University (2007).
Currently based: Hyattsville, Maryland