Alla Efimova photographed by Simon Rogghe

Alla Efimova is an art historian and curator who divides her time between New York City and Lisbon, Portugal. Efimova was the Director of the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the

University of California Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley ...

(2009–14) and a curator at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive. She taught modern and contemporary art history at the

University of California Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located in Monterey Bay ...

and

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

. In 2014, Efimova founded KunstWorks, an agency focused on legacy advancement for contemporary artists and artists' estates. Efimova has served on the boards of the Woodman Artist Residency Foundation, the Carl Heidenreich Foundation, Wild Projects, the Center for Art and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, the Council of American Jewish Museums, and as an advisor to the American Photography Archives Group (APAG).

Education

Alla Efimova received her B.A. from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, and a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

Exhibitions and publications

Selected exhibitions

*Carl Heidenreich and Hans Hofmann in Post-War New York. Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, 2004. *Acting Out:

Claude Cahun Claude Cahun (, born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob; 25 October 1894 – 8 December 1954) was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer. Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914. Cahun is best known as a writer and self-portra ...

and Marcel Moore. With guest curator Tirza True Latimer. The Magnes, Berkeley, 2005. Presented at The Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA. *They Called Me Meyer July. The Magnes, Berkeley, 2007. Presented at The Jewish Museum (NY) and Jewish Historical Museum (Amsterdam). *Through the Eyes of Rachel Marker: A Literary Installation by Moira Roth. The Magnes Collection, University of California Berkeley, 2013.

Exhibition catalogues

*Layers: Contemporary Collage from St. Petersburg, Russia. Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, UMBC, 1996. *Surviving Suprematism: Lazar Khidekel. The Magnes, Berkeley, 2005.

Selected books

*Textura: Russian Essays on Visual Culture. Alla Efimova and Lev Manovich, eds. The University of Chicago Press, 1993. *The Jewish Worlds: 100 Treasures of Art and Culture from The Magnes Collection. Alla Efimova and Francesco Spagnolo. Skira Rizzoli, 2014. *Thought Experiments: The Art of Jonathon Keats. Alla Efimova and Julie Decker, eds. Hirmer Publishers, 2021. *Kim Anno: Rebel Splendor. Alla Efimova, ed. Anglim/Trimble, 2023.

Articles

*"On Sleep and Oblivion in Post-Soviet Film." In The Imprints of Terror : The Rhetoric of Violence and the Violence of Rhetoric in Modern Russian Culture, ed. Anna Brodsky, et al. (Wien: Sagner, 2006). *"The Gifts," Brill (January 2007

*"To Touch on the Raw: The Aesthetic Affections of Socialist Realism," Art Journal (May 2014

*"On the Art of Jonathon Keats," Zyzzyva (April 2021)

References

External links

Official website

Video
of

San Francisco Arts Commission The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, Cal ...

reading and conversation on

Ed Aulerich-Sugai Ed Aulerich-Sugai (May 10, 1950 – February 13, 1994) was an Asian American artist, writer, gardener, and AIDS activist based in San Francisco, California. His artwork included sculpture, painting, murals, works on paper, and dream journals. H ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Efimova, Alla Writers from Berkeley, California American women art historians American art historians Russian art historians Russian women historians Historians of Russian art American art curators Russian art curators New York University alumni University of Rochester alumni Writers from Saint Petersburg Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Historians from California Russian women curators