Miguel Arzabe (b. 1975, based in Oakland) works in painting, weaving, and video. He starts by finding outdated beauty in paper ephemera from art shows, modernist paintings, and discarded audio recordings. They are methodically analyzed, deconstructed, and reverse-engineered. Drawing inspiration from the cultural techniques and motifs of his Andean heritage, Arzabe weaves the fragments together, revealing uncanny intersections between form and content, the nostalgic and the hard-edged, failure and recuperation. The complexity and rigor of Miguel’s practice have evolved into a singular aesthetic, evident in his recent exhibitions at the ICA San Francisco and the de Young Museum. David B. Smith Gallery is thrilled to include Miguel’s work at NADA Miami for the first time.
Arzabe’s work has been featured in international museums and galleries such as MAC Lyon (France), MARS Milan (Italy), RM Projects (Auckland), FIFI Projects (Mexico City), the Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco), Berkeley Art Museum, the CCA Wattis Institute, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His work has been included in many international festivals and biennials such as Hors Pistes (Centre Pompidou, Paris), Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (Montreal), and the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale (Gongju, South Korea). Arzabe’s work is held in public collections such as the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, FL; the de Young Museum; Albuquerque Museum of Art; Oakland Museum of California; San Francisco Arts Commission; the State of California; and numerous private collections. He has attended many residencies including Facebook AIR, Headlands Center for the Arts, Montalvo Arts Center, Millay Arts, and Santa Fe Art Institute.
He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, an MS in Environmental Fluid Dynamics from Arizona State University, and an MFA from UC Berkeley. In 2022 Arzabe was awarded the San Francisco Bay Area Artadia Award. In 2023 he was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a Golden Foundation Residency. In 2024 his work was featured in the exhibitions About Place at the deYoung Museum and The Poetics of Dimensions at the ICA San Francisco. In September of 2025 he unveiled his largest work to date, a public artwork commissioned by the New York Percent for Art for a new construction high school in Queens, NY. His work was recently featured in the contemporary art survey TEXTILES x ART published by Thames and Hudson AU (2025) .