Forthcoming
Book: I am currently writing a monograph on the artist Charles Gaines, and developing another book project on the topic of Black conceptual practice in contemporary art from the 1960s to the present.
Catalog essay: “Press, Release, Collapse: Gina Osterloh in the mind of the camera.” Gina Osterloh. Columbus Museum of Art, 2022.
Books
Publication coordinator and contributor, When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art, ed. Ruth Erickson and Eva Respini. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019.
Editor and contributor, Second Sight: the Paradox of Vision in Contemporary Art. Exh. Cat, Bowdoin College Museum of Art. New York: Scala, 2017.
Scholarly Publications
Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.
Museum Essays
“I might not be here when you come.” Published on the occasion of the exhibition “Erin Johnson: Unnamed for Decades,” March 21 – September 20, 2020. Rockland, ME: Center for Maine Contemporary Art, 2020.
“The Vocabulary Won’t Hold It,” Second Sight: the Paradox of Vision in Contemporary Art (Brunswick, ME: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 2018), 1-55. Exhibition page here. Publisher listing here.
“The Face is a Politics.” Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974-1989 (New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2014): 57-63.
“Samuel Fosso,” “Rotimi Fani-Kayode,” and “Berni Searle” (biographical essays) in Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity ed. Okwui Enwezor. Goettingen, Germany: Walther Collection and Steidl, 2010.
Criticism
“Best Show of 2024: Ellen Y. Tani on Nikita Gale,” Artforum v. 63, no. 4 (December 2024).
“State of the Union: Faith Ringgold at Glenstone,” Art in America, May 3, 2021. Review of Faith Ringgold’s major retrospective.
“Airing Out Ambivalence: on cultural care and the allure of judgment.” Commissioned text for the 2017 Common Field convening, The Chart.
“Spectacular Black Death at Fort Gorges.” Response to a performance by knightworks dance theater in the three-part series “A Long Wait,” curated by Erin Colleen Johnson at Fort Gorges, Maine, for Temporary Art Review.
“Charles Gaines and Sol LeWitt at Paula Cooper NYC.” Daily Serving (September 2013). Review of exhibitions by Charles Gaines and Sol LeWitt.
“Free Your Mind! Improvising Post-Multicultural Art.” Art Practical (June 2013). Response to a panel at Stanford University about the 1993 Whitney Biennial featuring Elisabeth Sussman, Jeff Chang, Kori Newkirk, Daniel J. Martinez and Connie Wolf.
Other Writing
Writing on Artists
Charles Gaines | “Sky Box II,” b.O.s. 19.2 – Black One Shot, a series published by ASAP/J. August 1, 2022.
Maia Cruz Palileo | “To Carry Them Forth,” essay for “Maia Cruz Palileo: The Answer is the Waves of the Sea.” Chicago: Monique Meloche Gallery, 2021.
Theaster Gates | “Chords of Reverence” in Theaster Gates: Facsimile Cabinet of Women Origin Stories. Waterville, ME: Colby College Museum of Art, 2021.
Oskar Schmidt | “A Decolonial Portrait and Its Impossibilities” in Oskar Schmidt: Centro (Berlin: DISTANZ Verlag GmbH, 2020), 41-51. In English and German.
Leslie Hewitt | Set Theory. New York: Perrotin, 2018.
Senga Nengudi | “What You Missed: Senga Nengudi’s Performed Objects.” Senga Nengudi (New York: Dominique Levy Gallery, 2015), 18-23.
Artsy.net
Artist profile: Kerry James Marshall
Artwork focus: Robert Rauschenberg, Bed
Gene focus: Joe Black’s Pixelated Portraits; Patrick Wilson’s Immersive Abstraction; What Makes Contemporary Art Feminist?; Abstract Art and Radical Color
Institutional highlight: The Blanton Art Museum; The Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Stanford MFA Catalog
“Phlegmatic Humor: A Conversation Between Ellen Tani, Yvette Deas, and Ryan Tacata,” Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2012.
“Military-Industrial Meets Techno-Utopia: Jacqueline Gordon’s Sound Sculptures and Technocrafts,” Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2011.
“Spectral Frameworks: Jerome Reyes’ Passages of Affect,” Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2011.
“Jeremiah Barber – Wayfinding: Conceptual Cartography and the Boundaries of the Self,” (co-authored with Barbara Greene) Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2010.
“Kazumi Shiho: Material Confrontations,” Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2009.
Asian Contemporary Arts Consortium
“Phlegmatic Humor: A Conversation Between Ellen Tani, Yvette Deas, and Ryan Tacata,” Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2012.
“Military-Industrial Meets Techno-Utopia: Jacqueline Gordon’s Sound Sculptures and Technocrafts,” Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2011.
“Spectral Frameworks: Jerome Reyes’ Passages of Affect,” Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2011.
“Jeremiah Barber – Wayfinding: Conceptual Cartography and the Boundaries of the Self,” (co-authored with Barbara Greene) Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2010.
“Kazumi Shiho: Material Confrontations,” Stanford University MFA Exhibition, 2009.