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, Will Brown (collective), Martin Soto Climent, Rana Hamadeh, Otobong Nkanga, Li Ran, 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. Her new research focuses on women artists in the fields of abstraction and architecture. She is currently working on exhibitions with Diedrick Brackens, Nathan Lynch, and a year-long collection show of women artists titled Unapologetic.
She is Assistant 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.
She is Assistant 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.
