Early life and education
Bryan-Wilson was born in Amarillo,Texas. Raised by a single mother, [4] her father was a Vietnam war veteran. [5] She came out as queer at the age of 15 in Houston,a city experiencing intense homophobia at the time,which she said influenced her activism. The HIV/AIDS crisis played a critical role in her activism and impacted her experience. Bryan-Wilson's early interests in art were informed by her experiences with activism and the queer feminist community. [4]
Bryan-Wilson received her BA in English from Swarthmore College in 1995. [5] After completing her undergraduate degree in literature,she pursued graduate studies in art history. She graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of California,Berkeley in 2004. [6] In her early 20s,she worked with Miranda July on the DIY feminist video chainletter,Joanie 4 Jackie. [7] [8] [9] [10]
Career
Bryan-Wilson joined Columbia in 2022,when she became the first art history Professor of LGBTQ+ studies in the history of the university. [5] Prior to her appointment at Columbia University,she became well-known for her research on queer and feminist approaches to art,labor,and cultural production. [4]
In addition to teaching at the University of California,Berkeley,Bryan-Wilson has also taught at the Rhode Island School of Design,the University of California,Irvine,and at the Courtauld Institute of Art,London. She also served as one of the Robert Sterling Clark Professors in the Graduate Art History department at Williams College from 2018 to 2019. [11]
Bryan-Wilson studies feminist and queer theory,modern and contemporary art,craft histories,and questions of artistic labor,as well as photography,video,collaborative practices,and visual culture of the Atomic Age. [12]
Her first major academic book,Art Workers:Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era, published by the University of California Press in 2009, [13] examined the politics of artistic labor in the 1960s and 1970s,particularly in feminist and Marxist contexts. [14] It was named an outstanding book of the year by Artforum, [15] Choice,and the New York Times. [16] Bryan-Wilson's article,"Invisible Products," published in the Summer 2012 issue of Art Journal ,received the 2013 Art Journal Award for Outstanding Article of the Year from the College Art Association. [17]
Her second book,Fray:Art and Textile Politics,published by the University of Chicago Press in 2017, [18] explores the role of handmade textiles in art history,drawing attention to the racialized and gendered labor involved in textile production. It also includes a critical analysis of the AIDS Quilt,incorporating queer perspectives into the narrative of art history. The book was awarded three major prizes:the 2018 Robert Motherwell Book Award by the Dedalus Foundation, [19] the Book Prize from The Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (or ASAP),and the 2019 Frank Jewett Mather Award from the College Art Association. [20] Holland Cotter named it one of the best art books of the year in the New York Times. [21]
Her third sole-authored book,Louise Nevelson's Sculpture:Drag,Color,Join,Face, [22] focused on the Jewish Ukrainian-American sculptor Louise Nevelson,challenged traditional monographic approaches in art history by expanding the conversation around influence to include what she calls "queer aesthetic kinship." She studied Nevelsons fan art,treating it with the same respect as professional critiques,and emphasized the importance of examining the wide range of spaces in which an artists work circulates. [23] [24] It was awarded the Terra Foundation for American Art International Publication Award,2022.
She is the editor of Robert Morris (October Files), [25] published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013. With Glenn Adamson,Byran-Wilson is also the co-author of Art in the Making:Artists and their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing (1st Edition), [26] published by Thames &Hudson in June 2016.
