Rhea Anastas (born March 11, 1969, in

Gloucester, Massachusetts Gloucester () is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is a part of Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 29,729 at the 2020 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a ...

) is an

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

and an associate professor at the Department of Art,

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

. She was also one of the founding members of

Orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of larg ...

, an experimental artist-run gallery in the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

in New York. Previously Anastas has taught at the Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere program at the Roski School of Art and Design,

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

, The Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture at Bard College, and was a lecturer at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Anastas received her B.A. and M.A. in Art History from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1990 and 1995 respectively, and her PhD in Art History from the

Graduate Center of the City University of New York The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and post-graduate university in New York City. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the ...

in 2004. Her dissertation was titled ''The Whole Artist: Dan Graham and Robert Smithson, Works and Writings, 1965–69''.

Work

Books

* *Anastas, Rhea (2012)
''Allan McCollum''

JRP-Ringier JRP, Ringier, formerly JRP Editions, is a Swiss publisher of high-quality books on contemporary art. Founded by Lionel Bovier in Zurich, Switzerland, the company has more than 400 titles in active distribution worldwide, including artists’ ...

. * *

Curatorial projects

*''New Cuts, K8 Hardy'', January 10-March 20, 2015, University Art Galleries, University of California, Irvine. *Art in Embassies Exhibition, Curator, with Barbara Piwowarska, U.S. Embassy Residence, Warsaw, Poland (for Ambassador Lee A. Feinstein), October 2010 through 2011. Artists exhibited:

Jo Baer Josephine Gail Baer (born August 7, 1929) is an American painter associated with minimalist art. She began exhibiting her work at the Fischbach Gallery, New York, and other venues for contemporary art in the mid-1960s. In the mid-1970s, she turned ...

, Melvin Edwards,

Louise Lawler Louise Lawler (born 1947) is a U.S. artist and photographer living in Brooklyn, New York.Louise Lawler ...

Zoe Leonard Zoe Leonard (born 1961) is an American artist who works primarily with photography and sculpture. She has exhibited widely since the late 1980s and her work has been included in a number of seminal exhibitions including Documenta IX and Documenta ...

, Jadwiga Maziarska,

Lorraine O’Grady Lorraine O'Grady (born September 21, 1934) is an American artist, writer, translator, and critic. Working in conceptual art and performance art that integrates photo and video installation, she explores the cultural construction of identity – pa ...

, Włodzimierz Pawlak,

R. H. Quaytman R. H. Quaytman (born 1961) is an American contemporary artist, best known for paintings on wood panels, using abstract and photographic elements in site-specific "Chapters", now numbering 35. Each chapter is guided by architectural, historical an ...

Allan Sekula Allan Sekula (January 15, 1951 – August 10, 2013) was an American photographer, writer, filmmaker, theorist and critic. From 1985 until his death in 2013, he taught at California Institute of the Arts. His work frequently focused on large economi ...

Jack Whitten Jack Whitten (December 5, 1939 – January 20, 2018) was an American painter and sculptor. In 2016, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts. Life Whitten was born in 1939 in Bessemer, Alabama. Planning a career as an army doctor, Whitten ent ...

Petra Wunderlich Petra ( ar, ٱلْبَتْرَاء, Al-Batrāʾ; grc, Πέτρα, "Rock", Nabataean: ), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is an historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to the mountain of Jab ...

. *Orchard, 2005–2008, co-founder, organizer of various exhibitions and programs.

Articles and essays

*''Language is the social dress'' in Josephine Pryde, The Enjoyment of Photography. Zurich: JRP Ringier and Kunsthalle Bern, 2015. *''Models of the Feminist Everyday'' in Jennifer Bornstein. Berlin: Buchhandlung Walther König and Berliner Künstlerprogram der DAAD, 2015. *''The Artist Is a Currency'' Rhea Anastas, Gregg Bordowitz, Andrea Fraser, Jutta Koether, Glenn Ligon, in Reading/Feeling, eds. Tanja Baudoin, Frédérique Bergholtz and Vivian Ziherl. Amsterdam: If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, 2013. Reprint of 2006 roundtable for Grey Room no. 24 and Documenta 12. *''Individual and Unreal: Agnes Martin’s Writings in 1973'' in Agnes Martin, eds. Lynne Cooke, Karen Kelly and Barbara Schröder. New Haven: Yale University Press and the Dia Art Foundation, New York, 2011, pages 132–152. *''Minimal Difference: The John Daniels Gallery and the First Works of Dan Graham'' in Dan Graham: Beyond, eds. Bennett Simpson and Chrissie Iles. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art; Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2009, pages 110–126. *''‘Not in eulogy not in praise but in fact': Ruth Vollmer and Others, 1966–70'' in Nadja Rottner and Peter Weibel, eds. Ruth Vollmer 1961–1978 Thinking the Line. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2006, pages 71–85. *''The Reconstruction Process: Barry Le Va, 1968–1975'' in Ingrid Schaffner, ed. Barry Le Va: Accumulated Vision. Philadelphia: The Institute of Contemporary Art, 2005, pages 36–53.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anastas, Rhea 1969 births Living people 21st-century American women academics American art critics American art historians Women art historians American art curators American women curators Bard College faculty CUNY Graduate Center alumni Columbia College (New York) alumni People from Gloucester, Massachusetts Rutgers University faculty University of California, Irvine faculty University of Southern California faculty Historians from Massachusetts Historians from California