Mary Anne Staniszewski, Associate Professor, 
Ph.D., Art History, Graduate Center, City University of New York, currently on sabbatical Fall 2010 and Spring 2011

Mary Anne Staniszewski investigates culture, art, and media in relation to political and social perspectives.  Her work takes the form of writing, editing, collaborative curatorial practices, and, more frequently in the past, collaborative artists projects.  Her major research and writing projects form a "trilogy" of interdisciplinary investigations of modern art and culture as articulations of the modern self. Staniszewski is currently working on the third area of investigation, a multi-volume work, which is an analysis of the historical and contemporary sense of self in the United States, featuring three key themes: race (and issues of slavery); sex (gender); and life and death.

The first book, Believing Is Seeing: Creating the Culture of Art (Penguin USA, 1995; Korean editions, Hyunsil Cultural Studies, Hyun Sil Moon Hwayonju, 2000 and 2007) frames art as we know it--that is art for art's sake--as an "invention" of the modern era and a manifestation of the age of the individual and the liberal, democratic, capitalist state. In the second book, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art (The MIT Press, 1998; paperback 2001; Korean translation, designLocus, 2007), installations are not only analyzed as contexts for works of art--but for those who view them. Museums are portrayed as sites for collective rituals that enhance particular notions of subjecthood--in MoMA's case, a U.S. liberal, democratic, capitalist one. The book is also a critique of the discipline of art history and the emphasis on the autonomy of the individual artwork. The Power of Display is intended to frame exhibition design as a discipline and integrate the installations of the international avant-gardes within the discourse of modern art. These installations are key to understanding what develops later in the century as multimedia and installation-base art.

Staniszewski is also the Director of a "Curatorial Incubator" at Exit Art, New York, which gives young and emerging curators, artists, and scholars opportunities to produce exhibitions dealing with critical issues not being adequately addressed by the mainstream art world. The first exhibition, Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now, curated by Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee, was presented at Exit Art from September 20 to December 6, 2008, http://exitart.org/exit_archive/history/2008.html and The Arts Center of the Capital Region, co-sponsored by iEAR Presents! and Humanities@Rensselaer (April 5 to June 5, 2009), http://www.arts.rpi.edu/pl/iear-events/signs-change-social-movement-cultures-1960s.  The catalogue published by Exit Art and AK Press is now available, see http://www.exitart.org/support/store.html. The second exhibition, Corpus Extremus (LIFE+), was curated by Boryana Rossa. This exhibition dealt with issues of biotechnology and questions of life and death and was presented at Exit Art from February to April 18, 2009, http://exitart.org/exit_archive/history/2009.html

In addition to the Curatorial Incubator projects, Staniszewski has conceived a symposium on Contemporary Slavery at Exit Art, New York, which she has organized in collaboration with Exit Art's staff that was held on Saturday June 11, 2011, http://www.exitart.org/exhibition_programs/current_programs/slavery.html#talk  The symposium was produced in conjunction with Contemporary Slavery, an exhibition, film program, and poetry series running from June 3 to August 5, 2011, http://www.exitart.org/exhibition_programs/current_programs/slavery.html  A podcast of the symposium is available at http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/exit-art-podcast/id82862773

Staniszewski has written for a diverse range of publications for more than twenty-five years. For relatively recent articles and published interviews that are available on-line, see:  

"Re-Presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum," Book Review, CAA (College Art Association) Reviews, December 15, 2010, http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/1538

"Denial, Delusion and Curating in the U.S.: Interview with Mary Anne Staniszewski, Oslo, May 2009," Gerd Elise Morland and Heidi Bale Amundsen, OnCURATING: The Political Potential of Curatorial Practice, ISSUE 04, Office for Contemporary Art and University of Zurich, Spring 2010, http://www.on-curating.org/issue_04.html

"Intimacy, Barbarism and Delusion," for the inaugural issue, of Where We Are Now (WWAN), issue 1, Summer 2009, is available at wherewearenow.org/06/intimacy/intimacy-barbarism-and-delusion/

For recent lecture/panels/media interviews available online see:

Radio Interview:  "On the Count: The Prison and Criminal Justice Report," host/producer, Edwin (Eddie) Ellis, WBAI archives, Saturday May 28 10:30 to 10:45 am, available at: 31:00 - http://archive.wbai.org/files/mp3/wbai_110528_100031citywatch.mp3

Radio interview: Radio Web MACBA, interviewed by Sonia Fernandez Pan, available November 4, 2010, http://rwm.macba.cat/

Moderator, Panel, "Activism and the Rise of Alternative Art Space, What is Alternative?," Alternative Histories Symposia, Exit Art, New York,  October 29, 2010, podcast forthcoming at http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/exit-art-podcast/id82862773

Lecture, "Visual Culture at the Museum of Modern Art," History of Exhibition Series, Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain, October 18, 2010, audio available at: http://www.macba.cat/controller.php?p_action=show_page&pagina_id=33&inst_id=29420&lang=ENG&PHPSESSID=36cdu2a0rpbjpj3v63reiit050

Interview, television program: Osmi Dan [The Eight Day], aired October 11, 2010, MMC, RTV Slovenia,  program available at 19:00: http://tvslo.si/#ava2.84546398

Lecture, "A Curation Declaration," October 2, also Moderator and Panelist, October 1 & 2, Symposium on Curatorial Practice: Exhibition as Artistic Medium, Curator of Contemporary Art as Author, produced by the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, co-produced by the Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana with the support of the Erste Foundation, Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia, October 1 and 2, 2010, videos available at USTREAM: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9951400; http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9927801; and http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9955785

Research areas: modern and contemporary culture, art, and media: cultural studies, including feminist, gender and race studies; curatorial and museum studies; and areas related to activism and a variety of human rights and social justice issues.