Faculty
Joshua Decter
Director and Assistant Professor
Joshua Decter has been a critic, curator, and theorist since the late 1980s. He is a contributor to Artforum, Afterall, and other periodicals, and has organized exhibitions at PS1 in New York, The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Apex Art in New York, The Kunsthalle Vienna, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, among other institutions. Decter is an advisor to the inSite (Art Practices in the Public Domain San Diego/Tijuana) organization since 2003, and was a curatorial interlocutor for the inSite_05 San Diego/Tijuana "Interventions" exhibition project, and organized the conference, "The Situational Drive: Complexities of Public Sphere Engagement," in collaboration with inSite San Diego/Tijuana and Creative Time, New York, presented at The Cooper Union, NY, in May 2007. From 2003 to 2008, Decter was a member of the graduate faculty and graduate committee at Bard's Center for Curatorial Studies, where he developed the curriculum for a number of graduate seminars, and supervised curatorial practicum seminars involving the realization of student exhibition projects. He has also taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York, New York University, UCLA, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues and books over the past twenty years, including most recently publications for the 28th Bienal of Sao Paulo, Brazil (2008), and the 2008 California Biennial. He received a B.A. in Art History from S.U.N.Y. Purchase in 1984, attended the Whitney ISP Program in Critical & Museum Studies from 1984-1985, and attended the graduate art history program at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts in 1987.
Rhea Anastas
Visiting Assistant Professor, 2008-2009
Rhea Anastas is an art historian and critic. She taught art history at The Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture, Bard College, from 2001-2008. She was co-founder of the cooperatively organized Orchard on New York's Lower East Side (2005-2008) where she curated exhibitions and programs. ??She has co-edited the books Dan Graham: Works 1965-2000 (2001) and (with Michael Brenson), Witness to Her Art: Art and Writings by Adrian Piper, Mona Hatoum, Cady Noland, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, Daniela Rossell and Eau de Cologne (2006). Recent articles include "The Artist Is a Currency," with Gregg Bordowitz, Andrea Fraser, Jutta Koether, and Glenn Ligon, Grey Room 24 (Summer 2006); "A Rendezvous Under the Counter: On David Joselit and Gareth James at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York," Texte zur Kunst no. 65 (March 2006); "Her Kindling Voice: The Artist Interview According to Louise Lawler," Texte zur Kunst no. 67 (September 2007). Anastas is a contributor to the forthcoming publication for the 2009 retrospective exhibition Dan Graham: Beyond, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She is currently working on a book about Andrea Fraser's Untitled 2003. Anastas earned a B.A. and an M.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York.
Anne Bray
Anne Bray has been working at the intersection of public art and media art since the mid '70s, as an artist, art teacher and administrator. Bray is the Executive Director of Freewaves, a media arts organization and festival in Los Angeles. She has organized many exhibitions of video art in public venues, including (during 2008), projected videos on the Getty Museum's exterior walls; the LAX Airport international arrival area; the "Hollywould Festival" on Hollywood Boulevard; the Art on the Waterfront in San Pedro Harbor, and VJ events.?? Bray has served as an advisor to DIY Video 24/7, L.A. Festival, High Performance, KCET, California Digital Arts Workshop, Deep Dish TV Interdisciplinary Arts Caucus, Blue Line Televillage, FreeSpeech TV Filmforum and others. As a nominator or juror, she has advised the Rockefeller Foundation, Art Matters, UNESCO, Durfee Foundation, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Creative Capital Fund.
Donna Conwell
Donna Conwell is a curator-producer and writer, and Project Specialist, Contemporary Programs and Research, at the Getty Institute. From June 2003 to September 2006, she was associate curator of inSite_05 where she co-organized a three-year residency program and co-curated eight interventions in the public domain. From November 2002 to June 2003, Conwell was commissioning editor for Latinart.com, a web-based magazine concerning art and culture in the Americas. From September 2001 to November 2002, she served as assistant curator at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. Her independent curatorial projects include From A to B, Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the inSite Archive Project, inSite, San Diego-Tijuana, where she acted as consulting curator. She is currently a project specialist at the department of Contemporary Programs at the Getty Research Institute, where she recently co-curated Overflow, a reinvention of Allan Kaprow's Fluids by the LA Art Girls.
Janet Owen Driggs
Janet Owen Driggs is a curator, writer, and artist. Her recent publications include texts for ArtUS, RiM magazine, the Hammer Museum, Art Review, and the anthology Kolibri. Driggs has edited History, Site, Document, a book about Not A Cornfield, an art project that took place in Downtown Los Angeles, 2005-06.?? As the Founding Director of the AIM international festival of time-based media and later as co-director of Raid Projects, Owen Driggs curated and organized events with, among other institutions, MOCA, Los Angeles; the Santa Monica Museum of Art; and the Hong Kong Art Center. Recent curatorial projects include Media Circle a series of online exhibitions for the Susquehanna Art Museum, PA and the upcoming "Not A Cornfield" exhibition and tour.? Owen Driggs is currently a Studio Writer at Metabolic Studio, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation.
Lauri Firstenberg
Lauri Firstenberg is the Founder, Director and Curator of LA>
Karen Moss
Karen Moss is an art historian, curator and educator who has worked in museum and academic positions since 1980. Currently, she is Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs at the Orange County Museum of Art where she oversees all curatorial, education and public programs. During her tenure at OCMA, Moss has curated Art Since the 1960s: California Experiments (2007-2008); Disorderly Conduct: Recent Art in Tumultuous Times (2008); Chris Burden: Tale of Two Cities (2007); Imaging and Imagining California (2007); and was co-curator for California Modern (2005-2006), the 2006 California Biennial, as well as numerous artists' residencies and public projects. Prior to OCMA, Moss was Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and graduate faculty at the San Francisco Art Institute (1999-2004), where she curated exhibitions, organized international artists residencies and public programs; Associate Curator (1995-1996) and Director of Education and Community Programs (1996-1999) at the Walker Art Center, and Director of Programs at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (1989-1993) where she curated exhibitions and organized the museum's Artists Project Series. Earlier in her career she was an Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1985-1987); Curatorial Assistant at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1980-1981) and Berkeley Art Museum (1978-1979), and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program (1979-1980).
Carol Stakenas
Carol Stakenas joined LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) as its Executive Director in September 2005. Stakenas arrived from New York, where she had served as the Director of the Third Millennium Foundation's International Center for Tolerance Education, whose program focused on exemplary interdisciplinary work in human rights. She was also the Deputy Director/Curator of Creative Time, New York City's adventurous public arts presenter, and produced artwork at sites such as the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, Times Square and Grand Central Terminal. Since 1978, LACE has fostered artists who innovate, experiment, explore, and risk. LACE operates within and beyond the walls of its' building to provide opportunities for diverse audiences to engage deeply with contemporary art. In this past year, Stakenas has produced an exciting range of creative and educational activities including 11 exhibitions, more than 40 public programs including Karaoke Ice, a mobile public art project. Stakenas has lectured at a range of institutions, including the Boston Cyberarts Festival, Concordia University in Montreal, The Leeds Film Festival, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Christina Ulke
Christina Ulke is a public artist and theorist; co-editor of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest and co-publisher of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press. The Journal's activities include the production of discourse around artists and activists' practices in the form of a printed and online Journal, a public lecture series, curatorial work, art projects, and a press. Its serial publications are distributed nationally and internationally, and are also available online. With the editorial collective of the Journal, Ulke has contributed to An Atlas of Radical Cartography, edited by Lex Bhagat and Lize Mogel; the 2008 California Biennial; Democracy in America: The National Campaign, Creative Time 2008; Civic Matters, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; Fine Print: Alternative Media, P.S.1, New York; and the documenta 12 Magazine Project Archive, Kassel, Germany. She has presented in numerous museums, art schools, universities, and conferences, including Transitory Publico at the UCLA Labor Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. Ulke has created many permanent and temporary public artworks, including a bus stop poster project for A Los Angeles Llegaron y por Hollywood se Pasearon during the Mexico City Book Fair, and Amigo Studios Revisited, a permanent parking lot installation commemorating a legendary recording studio in North Hollywood. Her most recent public art project, two thoughts meeting at an angle, was a commission for the Silver Lake Branch Public Library.
Staff
Elizabeth Lovins
Program Coordinator
Angela Cho
Administrative Assistant