I am the Director and Chief Curator of the Mandeville Art Gallery at UC San Diego, a non-collecting institute for contemporary art with a five-decade history of presenting innovative exhibitions in the context of a major research university. I also hold a dual appointment as a Professor of Practice in the Department of Visual Arts, where I teach courses in Museum and Curatorial Studies.
I was the founder and director of Gas, a mobile, autonomous, experimental and networked platform for contemporary art located in a truck gallery parked around Los Angeles and online. All of the gallery’s activities – from exhibitions to editions – are documented in an online archive designed by Lee Tusman and Caleb Stone, part of Tusman’s ongoing Archiving Artist-Run Spaces project.
I have a MA and PhD in Comparative Literature from New York University, and a BA in History and Sociology from U.C. Berkeley. My academic research addresses contemporary internet-based art practice and network culture. My first book Expanded Internet Art: Twenty-First Century Artistic Practice and the Informational Milieu is published through the Bloomsbury series International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics. Prior to UC San Diego, I have held teaching positions at California College of the Arts (CCA), the University of Southern California, Scripps College, the San Francisco Art Institute and New York University. My writing has appeared in Rhizome, Art in America, ArtAsiaPacific, Artforum, The Wire, CURA, New Media & Society and various art catalogs.
Since 2005, I have worked in non-profit arts organizations in various curatorial, editorial and fundraising capacities. Previously, I was the Assistant Curator of Visual Arts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Senior Editor of the art and technology non-profit arts organization Rhizome, and Special Projects Coordinator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. My wide-ranging curatorial projects encompass numerous exhibitions (both solo and group shows), public art commissions, public programs and publications. Highlights include the touring group exhibit Alien She co-curated with Astria Suparak on the influence of the punk feminist movement Riot Grrrl, the group show Office Space presenting works that subverted office design, the triennial Bay Area Now, a large scale public art installation with Kota Ezawa, and several solo exhibitions involving new commissions for artists such as Samara Golden, Shana Moulton, Metahaven, Nate Boyce, Brenna Murphy and Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork. My curatorial projects have received praise from The New York Times, Artforum, LA Weekly, Flash Art, Fast Company, and The Wire.
CONTACT: cecimoss(at)gmail.com