dr. maria elena buszek : curriculum vitae
KCAI-Liberal Arts facultyAssistant Professor of Art History
Kansas City Art Institute, School of Liberal Arts
4415 Warwick Blvd.
Kansas City, MO  64111
tel. 816/802.3378

e-mail: mbuszek@kcai.edu

EDUCATION 
2003         Ph.D. with Honors, History of Art

The University of Kansas

1996         M.A., History of Art 
The University of Kansas

1993         B.A., Art History and Mass Communication 
Creighton University

 

EMPLOYMENT
2002-present   Kansas City Art Institute (Kansas City, MO)

Assistant Professor of Art History (Modern and contemporary art and theory) School of Liberal Arts (2004-present)
Special Instructor of Art History (Modern and contemporary art and theory) School of Liberal Arts (2002-2004)

2000-2002         Santa Monica College (Santa Monica, CA)
Full-time Instructor of Art History, Fine Arts department

2000                    Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA)
Curatorial Assistant, Department of American Art

1999                    The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY)
Helena Rubenstein Foundation Intern, Department of Painting and Sculpture

1995-1998           The University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS)
Instructor of Art History, Introduction to Art History (1998)
Research Assistant: Special projects (1997-1998) 
Graduate Teaching Assistant (1996-1997)
Graduate Research Assistant: Spencer Museum of Art Slide Library (1995-1996)

1994-1995          The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO)
Research Assistant to the Curator of American Art

 

CURATORIAL ACTIVITIES
2009        Wignall Museum at Chaffey College (Rancho Cucamonga, CA)
Curator, Raised in Craftivity

2007        Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University (Kansas City, MO)
Curator, Raised in Craftivity

2007        Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art (Kansas City, MO)
Curator, Handymen and Girly Boys: Masculinity, Craft, and Culture

2006        Charlotte Street Foundation / Artspace (Kansas City, MO)
Curator, Charlotte Street Foundation Exhibition: 2006

2005          The Cube at Beco (Kansas City, MO)
Curator, Extra/ordinary: Fiber Artists Rethinking Art and Everyday Life

2001          The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS)
Co-curator (with Steven Goddard), Alberto Vargas: The Esquire Years

 

PUBLICATIONS: BOOKS AND CATALOGS
Editor and essayist, Extra/ordinary: Craft and contemporary art (forthcoming, Duke University Press).

“Eros and Thanatos: Surrealism, psychoanalysis, and contemporary feminist art,” In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States, Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (exhibition/catalog forthcoming).

"Mothers and Daughters, Sluts and Goddesses: Mary Beth Edelson and Annie Sprinkle," in It's Time For Action (There's No Option): About Feminism. Zurich: JRP-Ringier, 2007. (Read excerpts available here)

"'Perma-wave:' Bridging feminism's generation gap," in Blaze: Discourse on Art, Women, and Feminism. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholar's Press, 2007.

Whitney Lee's Power Craft. Austin, TX: Women and Their Work, 2007.

Charlotte Street Foundation: Ten. Kansas City: Charlotte Street Foundation, 2007. (Author of essays on Michael Converse, Gear, Peregrine Honig, Anne Lindberg, Seth Johnson, and May Tveit: Available online here)

Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2006.

“Pleasure/principle,” in Ghada Amer: Breathe Into Me. New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2006. (Click here for excerpts)

Aidas Bareikis: The Guard of Sorry Spirit. Kansas City, MO: Grand Arts, 2006. (Available online at here)

Charlotte Street Foundation Awards. Kansas City, MO: Charlotte Street Foundation, 2006. (Available online here)

"Allyson Mitchell: Desire and Dissent," in Allyson Mitchell: Lady Sasquatch. Toronto, ON: Paul Petro Contemporary Art, 2005. (Available online here)

Contemporary Artists. 5 ed. Detroit: St. James Press, 2001. (Author of new entries on Vanessa Beecroft, Sophie Calle, Raymond Pettibon, Pipilotti Rist, and Cindy Sherman; update author for entries on Laurie Anderson, Balthus, Lynda Benglis, Annette Messager, and Mel Ramos. Click here for excerpts)

Editor (with Stephen Goddard) and essayist, Alberto Vargas: The Esquire Years. Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas (Fall 2001): http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/collection/print/vargas/

Toward an American Identity: Selections from the Wichita Art Museum Collection of American Art, Novelene Ross (ed.), Wichita, KS: Wichita Art Museum, 1997. (Author of essays on William Merritt Chase, Charles Demuth, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, and Carl Wuermer)

 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS: ARTICLES
"Mirror, Mirror: Joanna Frueh as Fairy Stepmother," TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies (forthcoming).

"Sex Objects: Art and the Dialectics of Desire (book review)The Journal of the History of Sexuality (forthcoming).

Thinking through craft: A new wave of craft theory (book review)” Surface Design Journal (Fall 2009): 66-67.

“Emerging Voices in Context: Surface design and contemporary art criticism,” Surface Design Journal 33, no.1 (Fall 2008): 6-9.

“Women’s Work: WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution (exhibition review),” The Journal of Modern Craft 1, no. 2 (July 2008): 293-297.

"Feminist history and ambivalence in the work of Nicole Cawlfield,” Photography Quarterly 94 (Spring 2007):12-17.

"Say Cheese(cake)! How pin-up girls of the day reflect changing ideals of womanhood," American Sexuality (August 2007).

“The Revolution of Pink: Joanna Frueh in conversation with Tanya Augsburg, Maria Elena Buszek and Jill O'Bryan,” n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal no. 10 ( Fall 2002): 27-35. (Click here for a PDF version of the article.)

"'Oh, Dogma! (Up Yours!)': Surfing the Third Wave," Thirdspace: A Third Wave Feminist Journal 1, no.1 (July 2001): http://www.thirdspace.ca/articles/buszek.htm 

"Waving Not Drowning: Thinking About Third Wave Feminism in the U.S.," Make: The Magazine of Women's Art, no. 86 (December 1999-February 2000): 39-40 (Click here for a PDF version of the article)

"Representing 'Awarishness': Burlesque, Feminist Transgression, and the 19th-Century Pin-up," TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies 43, no.4 (T164, Winter 1999): 141-162

"War Goddess: The Varga Girls, WWII and Feminism," n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal 6 (March 1998). 

Regular contributor (1999-present), BUST Magazine: The Voice of the New Girl Order 

 

SELECTED PANELS, PRESENTATIONS, AND VISITING PROFESSORSHIPS
May 2010  Visiting professor, Cultural Studies Colloquium Series, Department of Cultural Studies, Columbia College (Chicago, IL)

March 2010  Keynote speaker, Women’s History Month Celebration, Women’s and Gender Studies Department, Duquense University (Pittsburgh, PA)

February 2010  Event chair/coordinator, The Feminist Art Project Special Sessions, College Art Association annual conference (Chicago, IL)

February 2010  Presenter, “Extra/ordinary: Craft and Contemporary Art”, College Art Association annual conference (Chicago, IL)

November 2009  Guest lecturer/critic, Department of Art + Design, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, IL)

November 2009  Guest lecturer/critic, Department of Art, Georgia College and State University (Milledgeville, GA)

May 2009  Featured lecturer, “Minding the Margins: Craft, criticism, and contemporary art,” International Surface Design Association conference, Off the Grid (Kansas City, MO)

April 2009 Keynote address, Rutgers University Women's and Gender Studies Association conference, Whores and Halos: Female Sexuality and Popular Culture, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ)

April 2009  Session chair/moderator, "The Handmade Effect/Affect: A roundtable on craft and contemporary art," Midwest Art History Society annual conference (Kansas City, MO)

February 2009 Session chair/moderator, “Artists Converse on Feminism: Andrea Bowers, Cheri Gaulke, Catherine Opie” (The Feminist Art Project Special Session), College Art Association annual conference (Los Angeles, CA) (MP3 recording available through CAA)

February 2009 Allen R. Hite Art History Lecture, Keynote address for the 2nd Biennial Aegis Symposium: Imaging Desire, Speed Museum of Art and the Department of Fine Arts and Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville (Louisville, KY)

February 2008 Panelist, "Feminism and Popular Culture" (Women's Caucus for Art Session), College Art Association annual conference (Dallas, TX)

December 2007 Visiting professor, Critical Studies Series, Producing Culture: Creators and Creativity in the Contemporary World, Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills, MI)

November 2007   Panelist/guest lecturer, Beauty and the Blonde: An Exploration of American Art and Popular Culture, Mildred Lane Kemper Museum of Art, Washington University (St.Louis, MO) (Click here for a Kemper Museum video of the panel)

November 2007  Panelist/guest lecturer, Let Me Show You the World: The Sewn Drawings of China Marks, Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University (Manhattan, KS)

July 2007  Presenter, “’Perma-wave’: Contributing third-wave scholarship to the feminist discourse,” National Women’s Studies Association annual conference (St. Charles, IL)

April 2007 Guest lecturer, Department of Craft and Material Studies colloquium, Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA)

March 2007 Visiting professor, Hall Center for the Humanities, University of Kansas Gender Seminar (Lawrence, KS)

February 2006  Panel chair, "The Impact of New Feminisms" (Women's Caucus for Art Session), College Art Association annual conference (Boston, MA)

February 2006  Panelist, "Third Wave Feminists in Conversation," Women's Caucus for Art national conference (Boston, MA)

April 2005  Lecturer, "We Won't Play Nature to Your Culture--The Photography of Naomi Fisher," Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (Kansas City, MO) (Click here for PDF version of this lecture)

September 2004  Performer/presenter, "Duets: Can you feel the love?" New, Two: Kansas City Art Institute Faculty Exhibition (Kansas City, MO) (Click here for artist's statement and documentation)

February 2004  Presenter, "From Womyn to Grrrls: Fostering understanding between feminist generations," College Art Association annual conference (Seattle, WA) (Click here for PDF version of this paper)

November 2001 Panelist/presenter, "Doing Feminist Art/Feminist Art Matters: Engaging Multiple Publics in Visual Cultures," American Studies Association Annual Conference (Washington, DC) 

October 2001 Guest lecturer, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, "War Goddesses: Women, World War II, and the Varga Girl" (Lawrence, KS)

February 2000 Session co-chair, "Learning in Mind and Body: Influential Teacher-Student Relationships" (CAA Committee on Women in the Arts Session), College Art Association Annual Conference (New York, NY)

August 1999 Lecturer, "Fame after Feminism: Feminist interpretations of the sexualized woman in popular culture," The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY)

November 1998 Session co-chair/presenter, "Looking for Trouble: Reconsidering the Dangerous Woman in Art," ArtsNow Conference, Subject to Desire: Refiguring the Body (SUNY-New Paltz, NY)

 

COURSES TAUGHT 
Introduction to Art History: Prehistoric art to the present
Introduction to Art History: Prehistoric to Medieval Art
Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to contemporary art
Issues in Modern Art (Baroque to Postmodernism)
Baroque to Impressionist Art: Europe and the U.S.
American Art History: European colonies to WWII
Modern/Contemporary Art: Post-Impressionism to the present
Expressionism: France, Germany, and Austria
Constructivism and The Bauhaus
Dada and Surrealism
High Art and Popular Culture
History of Modern Design
History of Book Arts: Gutenberg to the present
New Genres/New Media
Bernini to Fellini: The History and Visual Culture of Italy (study-abroad course)
Feminist Art and Theory
Postmodernism: Art and Theory
Arts Mentorship: Undergraduate Seminar in Contemporary Art and Professional Practices

 

SELECTED AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS
2008 Craft Research Fund Project Grant
For Extra/ordinary: Craft culture and contemporary art, Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design

2007 Emily Toth Book Award
Honorable Mention, Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture, Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association

2006 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award Nominee
Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture, College Art Association

2000 Gerald Kahan Scholar's Prize Nominee
"Representing 'Awarishness,'" American Society for Theatre Research

1999 CAA Professional Development Award
Honorable Mention, College Art Association

1999 Murphy Dissertation Travel Grant
Kress Foundation Department of Art History, The University of Kansas

1994-1999 All-University Fellow, Graduate Minority Opportunity Fellowship
University of Kansas Graduate School

1998 TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies: Student Writing Award 
For "Representing 'Awarishness'," NYU Department of Performance Studies and The MIT Press 

1996/97 Stokstad Teaching Award
Kress Foundation Department of Art History, The University of Kansas

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