Brian Vallo (Pueblo of Acoma) is a member of the Vilcek Foundation’s Arts Advisory Committee. The Arts Advisory Committee works collaboratively to provide expert guidance on the development of exhibitions and programs related to arts and culture.

For more than three decades, Vallo has served as a cultural and arts consultant with institutions across the United States. He previously served as governor of the Pueblo of Acoma, as well as the director of the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research. In his role with the School for Advanced Research, he led the development of Guidelines for Collaboration, a resource for Indigenous tribes and museum institutions in developing meaningful and sustainable partnerships.

Vallo is the founding director of the Pueblo of Acoma’s Haakú Museum, and has worked as a consultant to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Field Museum, and the DeYoung Museum. Vallo provides expertise to organizations on federal laws that protect Native American art and artifacts, including the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. In addition, Brian has served as Curator of exhibitions featuring Southwest Native arts and material culture. 

The Vilcek Foundation has worked closely with Brian Vallo since 2018, seeking his insight and expertise on the Vilcek Foundation’s collection and exhibition initiatives centering works of Pueblo pottery. Prior to joining the Advisory Committee, Vallo worked with the Vilcek Foundation as curatorial consultant on Native American arts and culture. He was an important partner in the development of Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery, working alongside President Rick Kinsel and Curator Emily Schuchardt Navratil to ensure that the exhibition centered Indigenous knowledge and experiences, and provided meaningful opportunities for community engagement from Pueblo community members. 

The exhibition—now touring institutions across the United States—features works from the Vilcek Collection and from the collections of the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Vallo is a member of the Pueblo Pottery Collective—the group of community curators who selected works for the exhibition from the Vilcek Collection and the collections of the School for Advanced Research. He contributed written materials for the exhibition catalog and wrote the introduction for The Coloring Book of Pueblo Pottery. Vallo is also a featured subject in a video produced by the Vilcek Foundation, discussing the design, function, and cultural meaning of an Acoma storage jar from the Vilcek Collection featured in the exhibition. 

To expand access to the exhibition resources and to the Vilcek Foundation’s collection of Pueblo pottery, Vallo curated the digital experience Pueblo Pottery: Stories in Clay. The digital experience centers the voices of the community curators of the Pueblo Pottery Collective, and highlights the enduring pottery-making traditions of the Pueblo people through videos, audio recordings, and 3-D views of works in the Vilcek Collection.