Erin Christovale is a Los Angeles–based curator and programmer who currently works as a curator at the Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles. Together with Hammer Museum senior curator

Anne Ellegood Anne Ellegood (born 1966 or 1967) is an American curator and museum director who is the executive director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Ellegood joined the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as a curator in 2009, and embarked on ...

, Christovale curated the museum's fourth Made in L.A. biennial in June 2018. She also lead
Black Radical Imagination
an experimental film program she co-founded with

Amir George Amir George is an American filmmaker, artist, and curator. He is best known for Black Radical Imagination, an international touring experimental film program he co-founded with Erin Christovale. In November 2022 he became the Artistic Director of ...

. Black Radical Imagination tours internationally and has screened at

MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution at 2201 Jackson Avenue in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...

;

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ori ...

; and th
Museo Taller Jose Clemente Orozco
among other spaces. Christovale is best known for her work on identity, race and historical legacy. Prior to her appointment at the Hammer Museum, Christovale worked as a curator at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. She has a bachelor's degree from the

University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts The USC School of Cinematic Arts is an academic unit of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. With a history that dates to the first years of talkies, the school descends from America's first program to confer a college degree in ...

Curated Shows

S/Election: Democracy, Citizenship, Freedom (2016)

S/Election: Democracy, Citizenship, Freedom was a mixed-media show Christovale curated at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery in 2016. The show featured works by 32 contemporary artists engaging with the concept of American citizenship, particularly in the context of the political climate surrounding the 2016 presidential election. Notable works in the exhibition included: * "Index of Fear" (2015) by Margaret Noble: an interactive media archive where one can pick out sounds that correspond to fears such as "futility" and "forgotten" * "Study for a Pattern or Practice" (2015) by Bethany Collins: a blind-embossed rendition of the table of contents from the Department of Justice report on the Ferguson Police Department after the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown * "Blessings All Around" (2011) by Olga Lah: an orange warning-barrier mesh repurposed as a draped garment on the wall * "We Are America" (2011) by Monica Rodriguez: inscribed protest slogans on eight American flags that hung from the ceiling of the central exhibition hall, including "NO FENCE CAN STOP HISTORY FROM MOVING FORWARD" and "WHERE ARE YOUR ANCESTORS FROM?" * "Peaceful Protest Helmet" (2016) by James Berson: a line of colorful helmets with the inscription "PEACEFUL PROTEST HELMET" and attached recording devices with the lenses facing the viewers * "Prison Relics from Phoenix Rising, Part 1: This Is Where I Learned of Love" (2012) by

Jennifer Moon Jennifer Chihae Moon (born 1973) is a conceptual artist and life-artist living in Los Angeles. She was born in Lafayette, Indiana and completed her bachelor's degree at UCLA and master's degree at Art Center College of Design. After college ...

: photographic documentation of objects the artist gathered while incarcerated at the Valley State Prison for Women and accompanying text detailing her time in prison * "James Baldwin #1-#5" (2014) by Marco Kane Braunschweiler: a short video of the author speaking about socioeconomic destruction caused by racism * "Cut-Outs" (2015) by Ramiro Gomez: a depiction of domestic workers in California The exhibition was accompanied by several public events at the gallery, including a panel on anti-gentrification efforts in Los Angeles, a writing seminar on the philosophical construct of citizenship, and a workshop on community organizing.

A Subtle Likeness (2016) & Memoirs of a Watermelon Woman (2016)

These two exhibitions accompanied each other at the

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries is the oldest existing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) organization in the United States and one of the largest repositories of LGBTQ materi ...

at the University of Southern California Libraries from September through December 2016. A Subtle Likeness featured work from four contemporary artists, Ayanah Moor, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Anna Martine Whitehead and Kandis Williams to create a space for queer, black radical tradition. The exhibition used performance, photography, collage, video and sound installation to explore biomythography and non-traditional archiving. ''Memoirs of a Watermelon Woman'' featured a production archive from queer filmmaker

Cheryl Dunye Cheryl Dunye (; born May 13, 1966) is a Liberian-American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye's work often concerns themes of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians. She is known ...

's making of the film ''

The Watermelon Woman ''The Watermelon Woman'' is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film written, directed, and edited by Cheryl Dunye. The first feature film directed by a Black lesbian, it stars Dunye as Cheryl, a young Black lesbian working a day job in a vide ...

'' in 1996. The exhibition included a full script, original audition tapes, published interviews and a photo series from the film's premiere at the 1996

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

a/wake in the water: Meditations on Disaster (2014)

"a/wake in the water: Meditations on Disaster" was an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art in Brooklyn, New York from August through November 2014. The video exhibition highlighted the intersection between traumatized diaspora bodies and modern environmental disasters through the work of 12 video artists. The work was displayed in formats ranging from wall-to-wall projection to a small TV set, to "echo the sentiments of people in the midst of catastrophe," Christovale said.

Black Radical Imagination

Black Radical Imagination is an international film program founded by Erin Christovale and

. The artists in the group tell stories of the state of contemporary black culture by exploring

afrofuturism Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture ...

, afrosurrealism and the magnificent.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Christovale, Erin Film curators Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American women curators American curators