Michelle Grabner (born 1962 in

Oshkosh, Wisconsin Oshkosh is a city in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, of which it is the county seat. The city had a population of 66,816 in 2020, making it the ninth-largest city in Wisconsin. It is also adjacent to the Town of Oshkosh. History Oshkosh was ...

) is an artist, curator, and critic based in Wisconsin. She is the Crown Family Professor of Art at the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum an ...

where she has taught since 1996. She has curated several important exhibitions, including the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

along with

Anthony Elms Anthony Elms is an American curator, writer, and artist based in Philadelphia. In 2015, Elms was named Chief Curator at the ICA Philadelphia. Career Education Elms received a BFA in painting from Michigan State University and an MFA from the ...

and

Stuart Comer Stuart Comer is an American art curator and writer who is currently Chief Curator of Media and Performance Art at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He was co-curator of the 2014 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, alongside Mic ...

, an
FRONT International
the 2016 Portland Biennial at th
Oregon Contemporary
a triennial exhibition in Cleveland, Ohio in 2018. In 2014, Grabner was named one of the 100 most powerful women in art and in 2019, she was named a 2019 National Academy of Design's Academician, a lifetime honor. In 2021, Grabner was named a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

by The

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowships to professionals who have demonstrated exceptional ...

Life

Grabner received a B.F.A. (painting and drawing) in 1984 and an M.A. in art history in 1987 from the

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a public urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and a member of the University of Wiscon ...

. Her MA thesis and exhibition was titled Postmodernism: A Spectacle of Reflexivity and included work by

Richard Prince Richard Prince (born 1949) is an American painter and photographer. In the mid-1970s, Prince made drawings and painterly collages that he has since disowned. His image, ''Untitled (Cowboy)'', a rephotographing of a photograph by Sam Abell and ...

, Sherrie Levine, and

Kay Rosen Kay Rosen (born 1943, Corpus Christi, TX) is an American painter. Rosen's paintings are included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of Ame ...

among others. She received an M.F.A. from

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Chart ...

in 1990. She is the Crown Family Professor of Art at the

, where she has been teaching since 1996. In addition, Grabner has also held teaching appointments at The

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

Cranbrook Academy of Art The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cra ...

, Yale Norfolk,

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 18 ...

's Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine.

Work

Her work is in the collection of the Art Museum of West Virginia University, Morgantown;

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

, Minneapolis; the

Milwaukee Art Museum The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art. Location and Visit Located on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum is one of the largest art museu ...

; the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contempora ...

;

DaimlerChrysler The Mercedes-Benz Group AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufactur ...

Collection, Berlin;

Musée d'art moderne Grand-Duc Jean The Grand Duke Jean Museum of Modern Art (french: Musée d'art moderne Grand-Duc Jean), abbreviated to Mudam, is a museum of modern art in Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg. The museum stands on the site of the old Fort Thüngen, on the so ...

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small land ...

;

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

, Washington, DC; the

Indianapolis Museum of Art The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Gardens at Newfields, the Beer Garden, and more. It i ...

; and the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and ...

, London. The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland presented her first solo retrospective, Michelle Grabner, "I Work From Home", November 1, 2013 - February 16, 2014. The

, MOCA Cleveland, Illinois State Galleries, and INOVA at

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which rou ...

have each hosted survey exhibitions of Grabner’s work. Grabner co-curated the 2014

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude ...

Biennial and curated the 201
Portland Biennial
She was the Artistic Director for the inaugural exhibition, FRONT International, the 2018 Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, titled An American City.

Writing

Her reviews are regularly published in '' X-tra'' and ''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

''. In 2010, Mary Jane Jacob and Grabner co-edited ''THE STUDIO READER'', published by the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style'' ...

. In 2018, Grabner edited ''An American City'': ''Front International'', a two-volume exhibition catalog published by the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egypt ...

The Suburban and The Poor Farm

With her husband Brad Killam, she founded The Suburban in

Oak Park, Illinois Oak Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago. It is the 29th-most populous municipality in Illinois with a population of 54,583 as of the 2020 U.S. Census estimate. Oak Park was first settled in 1835 and later incorporated i ...

in 1999 which hosted a range of international contemporary art. In 2015, The Suburban began programming exhibitions in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

’s Walker’s Point neighborhood. In 2009 Grabner and Killam opened The Poor Farm in rural

Waupaca County, Wisconsin Waupaca County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 51,812. The county seat is Waupaca. The county was created in 1851 and organized in 1853. It is named after the Waupaca River, a Menominee ...

. The Poor Farm is dedicated to annual historical and contemporary exhibitions, lectures, performances, publications, screenings and alternative educational programs.

References

External links