Desert X, the recurring exhibition that helped redefine land art for the 21st century, will mark its 10th edition in 2027 with a longer season, new curatorial leadership, and plans for international growth.
Opening October 30, 2027, and running through May 7, 2028, the next Desert X will unfold over six months—triple its usual run—to capture the desert’s changing light and align with major cultural moments in Southern California, including the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Modernism Week, Frieze Los Angeles, and the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.
The expansion signals Desert X’s evolution from a biennial experiment into a fixture of the global art calendar. “Over the past decade, Desert X has evolved from an idea into a movement,” Susan Davis, who launched the project in 2017 to bring large-scale site-specific art to the Coachella Valley, said in a press release.
The 2027 exhibition will again be led by artistic director Neville Wakefield, joined by Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas, who now becomes the organization’s first permanent curator. Garcia-Maestas co-curated the 2025 edition and previously ran the exhibition program at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York. The two curators’ collaboration will deepen Desert X’s focus on the desert as both subject and medium, with works conceived to change alongside the landscape.
In addition to its home base, the organization is laying groundwork for expansion, with future editions under consideration in Mexico, and building on its existing partnership in AlUla, Saudi Arabia, where Desert X AlUla 2026 will return from January 16 to February 28 under the theme Space Without Measure.
Space Without Measure, the fourth chapter of its partnership with Arts AlUla, will run from January 16 through February 28 of 2026. The show will present 10 new site-specific works inspired by the poetry of Kahlil Gibran, and conceived by Saudi and international artists under the direction of Neville Wakefield and Raneem Farsi, joined by two yet to be announced guest curators.
The 2027 anniversary comes amid a broader cultural reorientation toward the desert. The Palm Springs Art Museum recently named a new director, Christine Vendredi, who before joining the museum was the global director of art, culture and heritage, at Louis Vuitton, the High Desert Art Fair is set to launch in Joshua Tree’s Pioneertown with a roster of galleries that will be announced in January and performances by Mark Mothersbaugh and Beastie Boys collaborator Money Mark, and Coachella sold out for the first time in years — there are signs of a region emerging as an art-world destination beyond traditional coastal hubs and a deeper entanglement of the art, culture, and fashion worlds.
With more than 130 commissioned artists and two million visitors since its founding, Desert X has become one of the world’s most visible public art initiatives. The upcoming edition may just aim to consolidate that reputation and position the desert as a new center of artistic gravity.
“For ten years, we’ve welcomed the public to encounter ambitious works outside of the traditional art spaces—projects that reshape how we understand this landscape and the histories held within it,” Jenny Gil, Desert X’s executive director, told ARTnews over email. “These artists invite visitors to step into the desert not as spectators, but as participants. Marking this anniversary is less about looking back than recommitting to that vision: supporting artists who challenge, illuminate, and ultimately transform our relationship to place and to each other.”
