Lauren R. O’Connell is an art curator and writer. Her primary curatorial practice focuses on the artist and the promotion of inclusion, whether facilitating new works or uncovering extraordinary, yet under-recognized, histories. She has worked with numerous artists on new projects and commissions including Tarek Atoui, Kristin Bauer, Diedrick Brackens, Will Brown (collective), Martin Soto Climent, Otobong Nkanga, Jean Shin, Forrest Solis, and Qiu Zhijie. O’Connell worked on major retrospectives for modern and contemporary artists including Hans Hofmann, Charles Howard, and Harvey Quaytman. She is currently working on a retrospective and catalog about color field painter Dorothy Fratt.
O'Connell is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) and adjunct faculty at Arizona State University (ASU), where she teaches a course on curating contemporary art, the very first of its kind to be offered by ASU's museum studies program. O'Connell received a M.A. in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and held curatorial positions at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), both in California. Her essays have been published online and in journals, such as Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, and in the catalog Harvey Quaytman: Against the Static.
O'Connell is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) and adjunct faculty at Arizona State University (ASU), where she teaches a course on curating contemporary art, the very first of its kind to be offered by ASU's museum studies program. O'Connell received a M.A. in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and held curatorial positions at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), both in California. Her essays have been published online and in journals, such as Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, and in the catalog Harvey Quaytman: Against the Static.
