Miralda lives in Paris since the 60s. His anti-militarist first compositions, known as Soldats Soldés (1967-72), have been known as ‘assemblages’ evolving from the accumulation of plastic white toy soldiers. Living in NY in the 70s and 90s, his works centered on public space and the edible, with project such as; Wheat & Steak (Kansas City, 1981), Santa Comida, (Nova York, Miami, París, 1984-89), and the development together with Montse Guillén of the restaurant El Internacional in Tribeca (Nova York, 1984-1986). In the mid-90s, evolving from the concept of food as culture, he creted FoodCulturaMuseum, a project which has travelled, evolved and taken different shapes and forms, such as; Food Pavilion for the 2000 Hannover Expo; Power Food and Sabores y Lenguas (Caracas, Lima, Mèxic, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Xangai). In 2010, he had his extensive retrospective, De gustibus non disputandum, at the Reina Sofía Museum, and in late 2016 he will present at MACBA his recent American works. He currently lives between Barcelona and Miami.

In his work, Ríos pairs a rigorous conceptual approach with a meticulously constructed, often handmade aesthetic. Since the 1970s, he has made work about the concept of the “Latin American,” using this idea as both an artistic strategy and a political problem. In the 1990s, he began creating a series of maps, which he carefully folded and pleated by hand. Marking the 500th anniversary of the “discovery” of the Americas, the maps indicate long histories of power and colonial experience, and they reference traditional indigenous arts in the Americas, including the Andean quipu. Since the early-2000s, Ríos has also delved into the medium of video to create symbolic narratives about human experience, violence, and mortality.