Julia Christensen (born 1976) is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based in Oberlin, Ohio. She is Associate Professor of Integrated Media and Chair of the Studio Art Department at Oberlin College.
Julia Christensen's art practice spans photography, video, sound, installation, sculpture, and performance. Christensen's projects explore the intersections of technology, time, change, and memory. Her work has been presented at venues such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA), [1] Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), [2] Eyebeam (New York, NY), [3] Ronald Feldman Gallery [4] (New York, NY), Carnegie Museum of Fine Arts (Pittsburgh, PA), [5] 21C Museum/Hotel (Louisville, KY), [6] and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Cleveland, OH). [7] Her work has been shown internationally in India, France, Greece, Croatia, Finland, and beyond.
Christensen's practice often consists of long-term research projects, expressed through multidisciplinary artworks. Her project, Big Box Reuse, examined the civic reuse of abandoned Walmart and Kmart stores in the United States; Big Box Reuse manifested as photography, video, installation, [8] and her first book, Big Box Reuse (MIT Press, 2008). [9] Her project, Waiting for a Break, tracked the formation of Lake Erie's ice in real time over the course of extreme winter conditions; the work resulted in a live video kiosk in downtown Cleveland, Ohio [10] (commissioned by LAND studio), and a solo exhibition at SPACES (Cleveland, OH). [11] Another project, Upgrade Available, [12] is about the phenomenon of "upgrade culture," and how the perceived need to endlessly upgrade electronics impacts life in the 21st century; this research produced photography, installation, sculpture, and led Christensen to collaborate with scientists at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to design spacecraft mission concepts that prioritize long-term technological stability. [13]
Julia Christensen is the author of Big Box Reuse, published by MIT Press in 2008, [14] and Upgrade Available, published by Dancing Foxes Press in 2020. [15]
Big Box Reuse is a culmination of her multi-year art project documenting the civic reuse of abandoned “big box” stores in the United States. The book presents case studies, through photography and writing by Christensen, of museums, schools, churches and more in renovated Walmart and Kmart buildings. Big Box Reuse was met with wide acclaim, and was reviewed and featured in The New York Review of Books , New York , The Washington Post , The New York Times , The New York Times Magazine , San Francisco Chronicle , Cleveland Plain Dealer , among other publications. Amazon.com named it one of the Top 10 Art Books of 2008; it won “Best of Category,” General Trade Illustrated Books in the 2009 New England Book Show (sponsored by Bookbuilders of Boston); it was selected as a winner in the Trade Illustrated Category and the Jackets and Covers Category, 2009 Association of American University Presses (AAUP) Book, Journal, and Jacket Show.
Upgrade Available documents an ongoing investigation by Christensen into how our relentless "upgrade culture"—the perceived notion that we need to constantly upgrade our electronics to remain relevant—fundamentally impacts our experience of time. In a personal narrative interspersed with related interdisciplinary artwork and conversations with experts from different fields (other artists, archivists, academics), Christensen takes readers along a path from the international "e-waste" industry to institutional archives, eventually leading her to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Christensen’s writing has also appeared in Slate, Hyperallergic, [16] Print, Orion, and Cabinet magazines.
Christensen is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, [17] Creative Capital Fellowship (Emerging Fields, 2013), [18] LACMA Art + Tech Lab Fellowship (2017), [19] Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award (2015), SPACES R&D Award, and the MacDowell Fellowship (2015). She has received commissions from LAND studio (2017), [20] Turbulence (2007), and New and Performing Arts Inc. (2007). Her work has been supported by artist residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Media Archaeology Lab (University of Colorado, Boulder), Experimental Television Center, and the Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Studio. [21]
Catherine Sue Opie is an American fine art photographer and educator. She lives and works in Los Angeles, as a professor of photography at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Marie Zimmermann was an American designer and maker of jewelry and metalwork. She is noted for fine craftsmanship and innovative design in a variety of different mediums and styles. Calling herself “a craftsman” rather than an artist, she employed many different crafts in her work such as metalsmithing, carving, painting, and sculpting. A 1926 article in the Brooklyn Eagle by Harriette Ashbrook called her "perhaps the most versatile artist in the country".
Ida Applebroog was an American multi-media artist who was best-known for her paintings and sculptures that explore the themes of gender, sexual identity, violence, and politics. Applebroog was the recipient of multiple honors including the MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Grant", the College Art Association Distinguished Art Award for Lifetime Achievement, and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the New School for Social Research/Parsons School of Design. Applebroog lived in New York City and is represented by Hauser & Wirth.
Betye Irene Saar is an African American artist known for her work in the medium of assemblage. Saar is a visual storyteller and an accomplished printmaker. Saar was a part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, which engaged myths and stereotypes about race and femininity. Her work is considered highly political, as she challenged negative ideas about African Americans throughout her career; Saar is best known for her artwork that critiques American racism toward Black people.
Hannah Wilke (born Arlene Hannah Butter; was an American painter, sculptor, photographer, video artist and performance artist. Wilke's work is known for exploring issues of feminism, sexuality and femininity.
Becky Stern is a DIY expert based in New York City. Her work combines basic electronics, textile crafts, and fashion.
Alexandra Grant is an American visual artist who examines language and written texts through painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and other media. She uses language and exchanges with writers as a source for much of that work. Grant examines the process of writing and ideas based in linguistic theory as it connects to art and creates visual images inspired by text and collaborative group installations based on that process. She is based in Los Angeles.
Shane McCrae is an American poet, and is currently Poetry Editor of Image.
David Maisel is an American photographer and visual artist whose works explore vestiges and remnants of civilizations both past and present. His work has been the subject of five major monographs, published by Nazraeli Press, Chronicle Books, and Steidl.
Analia Saban is a contemporary conceptual artist who was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but is currently living in Los Angeles, California, United States. Her work takes traditional artistic media such as drawing, painting and sculpture and pushes their limits as a scientific experimentation with art making. Because of her pushing the limits with different forms of art, Saban has taken the line that separated the different art forms and merged them together.
Bettina Korek is an American arts advocate, writer, and the founder of ForYourArt, a public practice organization based in Los Angeles. She founded ForYourArt a platform to produce and distribute artists’ work. Korek is also a member of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission
Martine Syms is an American artist residing in Los Angeles, specializing in various mediums including publishing, video, installation, and performance. Her artistic endeavors revolve around themes of identity, particularly the representation of the self, with a focus on subjects like feminism and black culture. Syms frequently employs humor and social commentary as vehicles for exploration within her work. In 2007, she introduced the term "Conceptual Entrepreneur" to describe her artistic approach.
Julia Csekö is an Artist, Educator and Independent Curator having worked at multiple learning, non-profits, and cultural organizations, including Montserrat College of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Jen Liu is an American visual artist. She works with video, performance, and painting and creates pieces about labor, economy and national identity. She was awarded a Guggenheim and a Creative Capital award.
Elisabeth Sunday is an American photographer known for her powerful black and white portraits of people in Africa and Asia. Her subjects have included Akan fishermen in Ghana, Koro men in the Omo Valley of Ethiopia, and nomadic women in Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger, as well as people in Kenya and Zaire.
Carolina Caycedo is a multimedia artist based in Los Angeles.
Nanette Carolyn Carter, born January 30, 1954, in Columbus, Ohio, is an African-American artist and college educator living and working in New York City, best known for her collages with paper, canvas and Mylar.
Guadalupe Rosales is an American artist and educator. She is best known for her archival projects, “Veteranas and Rucas” and “Map Pointz,” found on social media. The archives focus on Latino backyard party scenes and underground party crew subculture in Los Angeles in the late-twentieth century and early-twenty first.
Shawné Michaelain Holloway is a Chicago-based American new media artist and digital feminist whose practice incorporates sound, performance, poetry, and installation with focuses in new media art, feminist art, net art, digital art. Holloway engages with the rhetoric of technology and sexuality to excavate the hidden architectures of power structures and gender norms.
Julia Gridley Severance was an American artist, sculptor and puppeteer. The Julia Severance Faculty Studio at Oberlin College is her former studio, and is named for her.