José Luis Barrios Lara (MX) is a philosopher, art historian, curator and critic. He is a full-time research professor at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, and professor in the Philosophy and Literature Department at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; and he has written numerous books and essays on art and cultural criticism.

In his work, Lara reflects on the contradictions that arise in contemporary global capitalism, particularly between the free market economy and democracy as a political and legal system. He explores the consequences of colonialism and the industrial economy, among them being violence in the form of a cultural and cognitive neo-colonialism that despotically manages the forms of representation or non-representation of bodies.