Elaine A. King
  • Area of Focus
  • Education
  • Professional Appointments
  • Papers, Panels, Lectures
  • Projects
  • Awards
  • Residence
  • Memberships
  • History of Art, (19th & 20th Century) Specialty Post-World War II American Art
  • American Culture and Photography & Video
  • Museum Studies
  • Culture and Art in Central Europe and Latin Nations
  • Cultural History & American Public Policy
  • An interest in how technology is affecting shifts in social values
  • New York University, Completed Certificate of Fine Arts and Decorative Arts Appraisal.
    2002
  • Ph.D., Critical Theory & The History of Art, School of Speech and The History of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston.
    1986
  • MA, History of Art and Public Policy & Administration. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.
    1974
  • B.A., History of Art, Pre-Law, Northern Illinois University.
    1969
  • Assistant Professor, History of Art & Critical Theory, Carnegie Mellon University
    1982
  • Associate and Tenured
    1988
  • Professor
    Spr.1996
  • Professor in John Heinz School's Master of Art Management Program
     
  • Faculty Affiliate in Center for Arts & Society
     
  • Executive Director & Chief Curator, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati.
    1993
  • Director/Chief Curator, Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery.
    1985-91
  • Will present the paper titled: "THE ARTS IN A MASH-UP TIME OF ALL: WHO ARE THE MAKERS AND THE VIEWERS," to be given at the School of the Visual Arts conference, Why Study Art?
    2016
  • Paper titled: "Art Where Art Thou? Anything goes and Not Cole Porter", at the School of the Visual Arts conference "Art Is..."
     
  • Paper titled: A Cultural Capital Quagmire, at the Transcultural Exhcnage, Boston, MA
     
  • Panelist for AICA Košice, gave the paper, A Mire of Cultural Capital Today in Bratislava, Slovakia. Essay was published in the Czech journal, Profil
    2013
  • Panelist for AICA, at Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland “ARTISTS AND ETHICS”
    2014
  • Wrote the essay titled, "Shifting Realm of Abstraction," for the exhibition catalog Abstraction in America, Part II, The 1970s & 1980s, Albright Knox Gallery at Chautauqua Institute
    2012
  • Interview with Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla artists representing the USA in Venice Biennial, June 2011 Sculpture Magazine.
    2011
  • Elaine A. King was a delegate representing the USA at the Annual Board meeting of the Association of International Art Critics in Paris, France in.
    2010
  • Participated in a panel discussion on the topic Censorship in the Arts Today at the Le Palais de Tokyo.
     
  • Wrote the essay for exhibition catalogue Joan Danziger, “Mythic Landscapes Joan Danziger’s Trees—A Union of the Fantastic and Proverbial”
    2009
  • Represented the United States at the Association of International Art Critics in Barcelona, Spain where she presented a paper titled “Too much of a muchness? Topography of Tedium?”
    2008
  • Panelist “Censorship and the Culture Wars”, Ann Arbor Film Festival
    2007
  • Paper at the Popular Culture International Conference in Wales on the art of Tony Oursler
    2006
  • Paper on A Global Cultural Tapestry: Museums in an After Post Present, at the Third International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities at Cambridge University, England.
     
  •  Contributed the Essay, "Whistler's Mother," for the anthology American Icons, Edit. Hall & Hall
     
  • MAMA, A Cultural Icon? Paper to be given at the Popular Culture Association American Culture Association, April
    2003
  • Chair, Panel: Art History, Criticism, Theory˜Where Are We Now? Midwestern College Art Association, Art Historian Conference, University of Pittsburgh
     
  • "Art History Across Cultures", Academy of Art, San Juan, Puerto Rico
     
  • Panel Chair, Reaching Across International Boundaries, American Association University Women's International Congress, November
    2002
  • The PM Principle: Power, People Politics & Money, CAA Conference, Philadelphia
     
  • "Faces In America," School of the Visual Arts, Conference on Remembering, New York, October
     
  • "The PM Principle: Power, People Politics & Money," Central European Cultural Institute, Budapest, Hungary, October
     
  • "Art Criticism/Theory in a Post, Post Structuralist Era", Ernst Museum, Budapest, Hungary
     
  • Facing America, Changing of Portraits -Social Shifts & Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, President's Lecture Series, October
     
  • Juror and speaker for the 2001 Prague Triennial, Czech Republic
    2001
  • Art Criticism, Its Evolution & Role, Carnegie Museum of Art, November
     
  • An Interplay of Idea, Myth and Reality, School of the Visual Arts Conference, October
     
  • Passivity & Power-Keys to Change, XXXV Annual AICA Congress in Zagreb, September
     
  • Portraits in American Society, University of New York, Prague, May
     
  • The Come Back Kid: Portraits in the USA, 1965-2000, Art Academy of Prague, May
     
  • National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lack of Public Policy, University of Scranton
    2000
  • Portraiture in America, The Come Back Kid, Smithsonian, American Art Museum
     
  • Changing Aesthetics in Art & Culture, Cleveland State University, January
     
  • Evolutions in the America Portrait, Society of American Culture, Annual Conference, April
     
  • Arts Policy, Museums and Art in the New Millennium, American University, Spring
     
  • Transaesthetics within the Postmodern Enlightenment Project, XXXIII Congress
    1999
  • International Art Critics, AICA, Warsaw, Poland, June
     
  • Technology and Graphic Arts, Municipal Museum of Art, Hungary, September
     
  • Art, Technology Shifts, Changes, Challenges, Arizona State University, November
     
  • Painting in a Kaleidoscopic Era, College Art Association, Annual Conference, LA. February
     
  • Alternative Careers in the Arts Outside of Teaching, ARTTABLE Panel, at CAA.
     
  • The Sky is Falling Chicken Little, Content, Context, ART? Arizona State University, January
     
  • Art Criticism/Art Writing: The Audience =? Mid-West College Art Association 60th Conference, Lexington, KY, October
    1998
  • Content / Context in Art??, AICA Art, Criticism Conference, Budapest, Hungary, April
     
  • Panel Chair, Art in Central Europe, Sculpture International Conference, Chicago, June
     
  • Shifts in Culture & Art In an Age of Information, Northern Illinois University, November,
    1997
  • Farbobjekte, Iso Wagner, Exhibition catalogue, Stuttgart, Germany, June 1997.
     
  • NEA & Federal Arts Policy, American Architecture & Art: Art & Theory Since 1945, Panel Chair; San Antonio, TX, American Culture Association, March 1997
     
  • "Vandalism, Iconography, & Censorship," College Art Association Panel, NY, Feb.
     
  • Technology & Culture, Erie Art Museum Symposium, February 1997
     
  • A Shifting Aesthetic Landscape in Past, Postmodern Era, AICA Conference, Zagreb, November
    1996
  • The NEA, Public Policy, and Rise of Figurative Art, Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art, October 1996
     
  • The Demise of the NEA & The Return of Political Figuration, Slippery Rock University, October
     
  • The Rise of Narrative Figuration and the Political Unrest of the NEA, Ludwig, Museum, Budapest,
     
  • "Transformation: Central Europe and the Post-Modern Model": at the AICA Conference, Crossroads in Central Europe Critics & Curators Symposium, Budapest, Hungary, April
     
  • The Post-Avantgardist in a Past-Post-Modern Era, College Art Association, Boston, also, Technology in the Painter's Studio, Panel titled, "Painters Who Don't Paint, "College Art Association, Boston, February
     
  • The Return of the Figure in 1980s and the Demise of the NEA, Midwestern Art Historians, The National Endowment for the Arts, Politics and Art Policy, Midwestern Art Historians Conference, Cleveland Museum of Art, March
     
  • The Excalating War on culture: The NEA, the Artist and the Government, School of the Visual Arts, New York City, panel, September
    1995
  • The Figure in Postmodernism, Allegheny College, Meadville, PA, September
     
  • The Abby Grunewald Lecture, The Post-Modern Enigma, University of Arizona, Tucson, March
    1994
  • Boundaries, Aesthetics & Multiculturalism, Ideas From A Devil's Advocate, Taft Art Museum, Cincinnati, November
     
  • Contemporary Art & Issues in the USA, Museum of Art, Bratislava, Slovakia, November
     
  • Who & What is Killing Art in the Post-Modern Era, II Biennial Art Conference, Györ, Hungary, November
    1993
  • Censorship: An Issue Across Disciplines, Leigh University, March
     
  • Women in the Arts After Waves I & II, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, November
    1992
  • Contemporary Art From 1985-1992, Wichita Art Museum, Wichita Kansas, April.
     
  • What Is Art Criticism and a Critical Dialogue? Delaware Contemporary Arts Center, January
    1991
  • Women Artists: Changes From Wave I to III, Brown University, Providence, November
     
  • Feminism, Art & Women, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, April
     
  • The NEA: The Medici Beyond the Potomac, College Art Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC., February
     
  • The Floundering of the Modernist Movement: 1965-1975, Albright College
    1990
  • Post-Minimalism and the Art of Barry Le Va, Neuberger Art Museum, Purchase, NY
     

Current Projects

  • Completing a book titled: Strange Bedfellows: The Relationship of Post-Modern Art and The Arts Endowment, with a preface by Donald Kuspit
  • May 2016 presented paper Art and Visual Culture: Today Is Not Yesterday at International Conference on Research in Education & Science, to be published in a journal of ICRES
  • Contributed the essay Casting: Unbounded in an Expanded Age for the book CAST, to be published in late 2016

Previous Projects

  • Berkman Faculty Research Grant, Carnegie Mellon University
    2013
  • Berkman Faculty Research Grant, Carnegie Mellon University
    2008
  • Berkman Faculty Research Grant, Carnegie Mellon University
    2003
  • Fellowship, Research Institute for Art history of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Hungary
    2002
  • Faculty Development Grants
     
  • Short-term Research Fellowship, Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, Spring
    2001
  • Awarded an IREX grant to do research in Prague on changes in contemporary art after the fall of the wall
     
  • IREX Grant, Central European Contemporary Art Research in Prague & Budapest
    2000
  • Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Special Initiative Grant
     
  • Critic in Residence, Kutztown University, Spring, 2000
     
  • Faculty Development Grants
     
  • Senior Research Fellowship, Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum (Feb.2000 - June)
    2000
  • Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Art Critic's Fellowship
     
  • Critic-in-Residence, Arizona State University: Critiqued MFA Students
     
  • Smithsonian Institution Short Term Research Fellowship, Archives of American Art
    1998
  • Faculty Development Grant, Carnegie Mellon University, (also 1998, 1987, 1986)
    1996
  • Pennsylvania Arts Council Grant, Art Criticism Fellowship (also in 1989 & 1986)
    1995
  • Vira I. Heinz Foundation, Museum Exhibition Grants. (4 in total)
    1991-85
  • Lannan Foundation, Barry Le Va, catalogue Grant & Chris Burden show, (also in 1988)
    1990
  • Andy Warhol Foundation, Keith Sonnier Exhibition Grant
     
  • Museum Exhibition & Catalogue Grants
     
  • The National Endowment for the Arts (In 1989, 1988, 1985, 1983)
     
  • Richard K. Mellon Foundation Grant, French International Exhibition from artists' Action, for the Michel Gerard Show
    1989
  • American Association of Museums, Award of Merit for the Tishan Hsu catalogue
    1988
  • Award of Distinction, American Association of Museums for the Mel Bochner catalogue
    1986
  • National Endowment for the Arts, Photography Exhibition Grant.
    1981
 
Listed in: [Begins with original date included in volume]
  • Who's Who In America
    1990-
  • Who's Who in American Art
    1990
  • Who's Who in American Women
    1991-
  • Who's Who in the World
    1986-
  • Who's Who In Society
    1989-
  • Who's Who In the East
    1983-
  • Who's Who in the Midwest
    1980-82
  • Critic-in-residence at the Scuola Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence and gave a lecture titled “A Choatic Topography of Tedium: Criticism & Exhibitions.”
    2007
  • Distinguished Art Historian in Residence for American University’s International Program in Corciano, Italy
    2006
  • Short-term Research Fellow, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
    2002
  • Senior Research Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
    2001
King is a member of the College Art Association, Art Table, American Culture/Popular Culture Society, and Center for Arts and Society.