Carla Kessler researches and writes about modern and contemporary art. Previously she worked in audience research and strategic planning for museums including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art.
Thesis
Unofficial Evidence: Documenting Experience in Live Art Since the 1970s
Funded by the Courtauld Scholarship
Supervisor: Dr. Lucy Bradnock
Advisor: Professor Sarah Wilson
I am writing a history of audience experience in four artworks from the 1970s to today.
Though audience experience is core to installation and performance art, it is difficult to document, and so, remains largely absent from the art historical record. The goal of this project is to better archive and historicise such artworks, through retroactive fieldwork, oral history interviews, and social media analysis. Case studies represent a range of sensory and political concerns, including Walter De Maria’s large-scale installations on view in New York since the 1970s; a counter-monument by Marta Minujín; Taryn Simon’s participatory installation; and a recent durational performance conceived by Ragnar Kjartansson and participants from Detroit to Reykjavík.
Research Interests
Modern and contemporary art; spectatorship throughout history; live and performance art; film, photography, and new media; socially engaged art; taste and class.
Education
- PhD, The Courtauld Institute of Art
- MA with Distinction, History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art
- BS, Theatre and History, Northwestern University
University and Museum Work
- 2023-present: Assistant Lecturer and Course Designer, BA2: Art History and Social Justice
- 2022-2023: Teaching Assistant, BA2: Frameworks for Interpretation
- 2022: Teaching Assistant, BA1: Foundations of Art History
- 2021-2022: Course design for the Department of Art History at The University of Pennsylvania (MA course title: ‘The Future of Arts Audiences‘)
- 2020-2021: Online Learning Support Officer, The Courtauld Institute of Art
- 2015-2019: Course design and guest lecturer, Stanford University (BA course title: ‘Arts Organisations and the Changing Cultural Audience‘)
- 2015-2019: Strategist, LaPlaca Cohen (strategic planning and audience research clients included the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago)
- 2008-2014: Public Affairs Liaison and Visitor Experience Research Manager, The Art Institute of Chicago
Lectures & Publications
- ‘Emotional Ambiguity: In Conversation with Ragnar Kjartansson,’ Immediations, No. 19, 2022
- ‘TRANSMISSIONS: Making TV Art History,’ Immediations, No. 18, 2021
- ‘Plastic-Wrapped Vanitas’. In Daina Mattis: Family Style. New York: High Noon Gallery, 2020.
- ‘Culture Track 2017: A Study of American Cultural Audiences’. Presented at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia; the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York; the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa; the Indianapolis Museum of Art; Brooklyn College, New York; and the Guggenheim Museum Internship Program, New York (2017– 2018).