UV professor Vicente Pla, new co-director of the Valencian Archive of Design.

Vicente Pla Vivas (Sangunt, 1962) is a professor at the Department of Art History at the University of Valencia and his research work has specialised in the problems generated by images during the historical processes of the introduction of modernity; and in the study and interpretation of graphic images, photographs, and the Valencian art of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

In this sense, his research proposal involves opening up connection channels with the history of aesthetics, technique and epistemology, as well as with cultural studies, in order to reconstruct the active structures in the functioning and evolution of the mechanisms of modern imaginaries.

He is the author of the book ‘La ilustración gráfica del siglo XIX. Funciones y disfunciones’ (Graphic illustration in the 19th century. Functions and dysfunctions) and participant in diverse research programmes, such as the R+D+i project ‘La vida artística en Valencia (1880-1936). Fuentes para un diccionario de artistas’ (Artistic life in Valencia (1880-1936). Sources for a dictionary of artists); and artistic-cultural, through ASCIGE (Atelier sour le Satirique, la Caricature et l'Illustration Graphique en Espagne), in the International Festival Incubarte 6 and 7, and in Perifèries 13.

He is currently developing contemporary art criticism on Artur Heras, Sebastià Miralles, Manuel Bellver, José Guerrero Tonda, María José Pérez Vicente, Miguel García Cano and XL Family, among other artists. He also gives conferences on 19^th and 20^th century art. Finally, he has curated several exhibitions, including ‘Juan Cuéllar. Distopía’, which was exhibited in La Nau Cultural Centre of the University of Valencia in 2018.