Aria Dean (born 1993) is an American artist, critic, and curator. Until 2021, Dean served as Curator and Editor of

Rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

. Her writings have appeared in various art publications including ''

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

'', ''

e-flux e-flux is a publishing platform and archive, artist project, curatorial platform, and e-mail service founded in 1998. The arts news digests, events, exhibitions, schools, journal, books, and art projects produced and/or disseminated by e-flux ...

'', ''

The New Inquiry ''The New Inquiry'' is an online magazine of cultural and literary criticism, established by Mary Borkowski, Jennifer Bernstein and Rachel Rosenfelt in 2009 and administered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation. The magazine's website updates da ...

'', '' Art in America'', and ''Topical Cream''. Dean has exhibited internationally at venues such as Foxy Production and American Medium in New York, Chateau Shatto in Los Angeles, and Arcadia Missa in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Dean also co-directs As It Stands LA, an artists project space that opened in 2015. Dean lives and works in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. She is represented by Greene Naftali.

Early life and education

Dean was born in 1993. She graduated from

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

in 2015.

Work

After graduating from Oberlin College, Dean was appointed social media coordinator for the Museum of Contemporary Art. In September 2016, ''

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American art magazine, based in New York City. It covers visual arts from ancient to contemporary times. It is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. ''ARTnews'' has a readership of 180,000 in 124 co ...

'' announced that Dean had been appointed assistant curator of net art and digital culture for

. Dean helped Rhizome's efforts to preserve, present, and re-perform works of net art from the 1980s to the present day (called ''Net Art Anthology''), organize events, and publish articles online. Dean stepped down as Editor and Curator in January 2021 to pursue her solo practice and a new project. Dean's first solo exhibition, ''Baby Is A Cool Machine'', opened at American Medium in 2017. The exhibition, according to the gallery's website, "hones in on her materially-driven examination of the situation of blackness in the United States." The show was critically praised by James Hannaham at ''4Columns'' and selected by Kat Herriman as a Critic's Picks for ''

''. In 2018, Aria Dean was named one of ''Cultured Magazines 30 artists under 35. In late 2017, Dean curated ''New Black Portraitures'' as part of Rhizome's ''Net Art Anthology''. The online exhibition included visual artists Manuel Arturo Abreu, Hamishi Farah, Juliana Huxtable, Rindon Johnson, Pastiche Lumumba, N-Prolenta (Brandon Covington), Sondra Perry, and Redeem Pettaway and, "explored the changing status of black portraiture in relation to strategies for visibility, concealment, and self-representation online." In early 2018, Dean wrote and directed a play for the Swiss Institute in New York. Her second solo exhibition, ''lonesome crowded west'', featured sculptural objects and installation that "shuttle between experiences as personally lived and the sweeping generalizations of the media and historical modernism" according to critic Matt Stromberg of ''

Hyperallergic ''Hyperallergic'' is an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009, the site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful, and radical thinki ...

''. In an interview with Travis Diehl, Dean revealed sourcing the clay in her painting-like sculpture from Mississippi, and that the series speaks to her "proximity and distance in relation to that place." Other works featured crowd shots from hip-hop videos, a two-channel installation that explore the loneliness of black existence in predominantly-western contexts.

"They index the sort of relationship that I was interested in, subsuming oneself into this particularly black crowd where individuals that already don’t exist so distinctly as "proper" western individual subjects get subsumed into this other object. The show title is from a Modest Mouse album, The Lonesome Crowded West (1997), and I’m not a huge Modest Mouse fan, but I like the album. I latched onto that phrase. "The Lonesome Crowded West" is my situation in relationship to the objects. I am the lonesome crowd, in the west…"

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions * ''Wolves'', Progetto, Lecce, IT, 2023 * ''Show Your Work Little Temple'', Greene Naftali, New York, NY, 2021 * ''Aria Dean: Suite!'',

REDCAT Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT) is an interdisciplinary contemporary arts center for innovative visual, performing and media arts in downtown Los Angeles, California, located inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. Named for ...

, Los Angeles, CA, 2021 * ''Aria Dean'',

Albright–Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum located adjacent to Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, United States. The museum shows modern art and contemporary art. It is directly opposite Buff ...

, Gallery for New Media, Buffalo, NY, 2018 * ''lonesome crowded west'', Château Shatto, Los Angeles, 2018 * ''Gut Pinch'', The Sunroom, Richmond, VA 2018 * ''Baby is a Cool Machine'', American Medium, New York, NY 2017 Selected two-person exhibitions * ''White Ppl Think I'm Radical'', Arcadia Missa, London, U.K., 2017 Selected group exhibitions * 2022 Whitney Biennial - "Quiet as It's Kept" curated by Adrienne Edwards and David Breslin * ''Made in L.A. 2020: a version'', organized by

Myriam Ben Salah Myriam Ben Salah is a Tunisian curator based in Paris. She became the editor-in-chief of Kaleidoscope Magazine in 2016. Prior, she coordinated special projects and public programs at the Palais de Tokyo from 2009 to 2016. In 2017, Ben Salah curat ...

and Lauren Mackler,

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

, Los Angeles, CA 2021 * Greene Naftali, New York, NY, 2020 * ''The Pain of Others'', curated by

, Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2018 * ''Condo New York: Château Shatto, Los Angeles, presents: Jean Baudrillard, Body by Body, Aria Dean, Jacqueline de Jong'', Foxy Productions, New York, NY 2017 * ''At this stage,'' Château Shatto, Los Angeles, CA 2017 Selected lectures/presentations * "Notes on BlacceleraLon,"

Reed College Reed College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland, Portland, Oregon, E ...

, September 1, 2017 * "Blackness Against the Digital," University of the Arts, Helsinki, April 2017 * "Busta Rhymes at the End of the World," Machine Project, LA, February 24, 2017 * "Our Bodies, Online" panel at the

New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers ...

, February 7, 2017 * "Blackness in CirculaLon," panel at Open Score,

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

, 2016 * "Due West," Arcadia Missa/Dominica Reading at LACA, Los Angeles 2016

Bibliography

Essays * "Notes on Blacceleration" (''

'', 2017) * "The Demand Remains" (''

'', 2017) * "Poor Meme, Rich Meme" (''

REALLIFE Magazine ''REALLIFE Magazine'' was a publication featuring written and visual material by and about young artists that was co-founded and published by artist Thomas Lawson and writer Susan Morgan between 1979 and 1994.Printed Matter''REAL LIFE Magazine'' ...

'', 2016) * "Alex Da Corte" (''

'', 2016) * "Closing the Loop" (''

'', 2016) *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dean, Aria 1993 births Living people African-American contemporary artists American new media artists 21st-century American women artists American art critics Oberlin College alumni 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American artists Accelerationism American women curators American curators