Anna Novakov - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Anna Novakov is a Serbian-American art historian, critic, educator and curator based at Saint Mary's College of California

Saint Mary's College of California

Saint Mary's College of California is a private, coeducational college located in Moraga, California, United States, a small suburban community about east of Oakland and 20 miles east of San Francisco. It has a 420-acre campus in the Moraga hills. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church...

. A prolific writer, Novakov has received numerous awards and grants for her research and art criticism. In addition to her published essays, collaborations with artists, museum catalogues and exhibition reviews, she is the primary contributor and editor of more than ten books.

Education

Anna Novakov holds a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

, a master's degree from the University of California, Davis

University of California, Davis

The University of California, Davis is a public teaching and research university established in 1905 and located in Davis, California, USA. Spanning over , the campus is the largest within the University of California system and third largest by enrollment...

, and a doctorate from New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

in the History of Art and Art Education under the direction of Professor Angiola Riva Churchill and Professor David Ecker.

Teaching

From 1992 until 2003, Novakov taught courses in the history of art, gender and visual culture at the San Francisco Art Institute

San Francisco Art Institute

San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...

. Her students included Nao Bustamante, Felipe Dulzaides

Felipe Dulzaides

Felipe Dulzaides is a Cuban-American artist.Felipe Dulzaides’ is an artist whose work includes video, installations, photography, assemblages, neon, performance-actions, drawings, social sculptures and concept based public art projects...

, Mads Lynnerup, Matmos

Matmos

Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore signed to the Matador Records label. M. C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their performances, including...

, Guy Overfeld, Nuno Pedrosa, Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley is a New York-based portrait painter, who is known for his highly naturalistic paintings of contemporary urban African, African-American, Afro-Brazilian, Indian and Ethiopian-Jewish men in heroic poses.-Early life:...

and many other emerging artists. In 2004 she was tenured as a professor of art history and women’s studies at Saint Mary’s College of California – a liberal arts college. While at Saint Mary’s, Novakov has explored the role that public spaces (both physical and virtual) can play in undergraduate pedagogical development.

Exhibitions

Anna Novakov has been curator of a number of European exhibitions that melded public space and gender with contemporary installation art. Working with Swedish artist, Jorgen Svensson, Novakov conceptualized Public Safety (2000) – an exhibition held in Hammaro, Sweden. In 2005, Novakov collaborated with Swiss artist and writer Denise Ziegler on Moving Target – an international exhibition of public art in Helsinki, Finland.

Public Art

In 1989, Novakov came to prominence in Manhattan as one of the first art critics to write about the role of gender in contemporary public art. Her writings on artists such as Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramović is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and...

, Dennis Adams

Dennis Adams

Dennis Adams is an American artist internationally recognized for his urban interventions and museum installations that reveal historical and political undercurrents in photography, cinema, public space and architecture. Over the last three decades, he has realized over fifty urban projects in...

, Shimon Attie, Tony Labat, Inigo Manglane-Ovalle, Michael Rakowitz

Michael Rakowitz

Michael Rakowitz is an Iraqi American Artist, best known for his conceptual art displayed in non-gallery contexts. He is an associate professor at Northwestern University.-References:...

, and Andrea Zittel

Andrea Zittel

Andrea Zittel is an American practicing sculptor, installation artist, and Relational artist.-Early Life:Born in Escondido, California in 1965, Zittel graduated from San Pasqual High School in 1983...

has formed the basis for public art studies – an academic branch of art history and visual culture.

Interwar Architecture

For the past ten years, her work has explored art, gender and interwar architecture in the Netherlands, France, Austria and Germany. During this time Novakov has written extensively about the role of gender in the architectural work of Eileen Gray

Eileen Gray

Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray was an Irish furniture designer and architect and a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture.- Biography :...

, Charlotte Perriand

Charlotte Perriand

Charlotte Perriand , was a French architect and designer. Her work aimed to create functional living spaces in the belief that better design helps in creating a better society...

, Lily Reich, and Grete Schutte-Lihotzky.

Women Artists in the former Yugoslavia

Currently, Novakov is writing about the history of the Eastern European modernism (from 1900–1945) and its impact on avant-garde artists and architects working in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia.
Her in-depth analysis of works by Ivana Tomljenovic and Milena Pavlovic-Barilli is the first by a historian living outside of the Balkans.

Books

Veiled Histories: The Body, Place and Public Art (1997)
Carnal Pleasures: Desire, Contemporary Art and Public Space (1998)
The Artistic Legacy of Le Corbusier’s machine à habiter (2008)
Essays on Women's Artistic and Cultural Contributions 1919-1939: Expanded Social Roles for the New Woman following the First World War (2009)