معرفی
Karen Fiss is a Professor in the History of Art and Visual Culture Program at California College of the Arts, specializing in the visual production of national identity from the 1930s to contemporary nation branding practices. Her research examines how soft power mechanisms shape social, artistic and built environments, with particular focus on the commodification of citizenship and historical memory.
Fiss holds a PhD from Yale University and a BA from Brown University. Her academic journey includes previous positions as Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at Washington University St. Louis, and curatorial roles at The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London.
Her research interests explore the intersections of visual culture, political power, and national identity formation. Fiss investigates how nation branding practices relate to globalization mechanisms in the contemporary art world, examining case studies from Vietnam, Germany, and South Africa following the Cold War. Her work critically analyzes how cultural exchange shifts toward political collaboration, and how historical narratives are commodified in postcolonial emerging economies.
Her publications reveal consistent engagement with postcolonial visual culture, nation branding, and political representation. The most recent works demonstrate increasing focus on transgender rights, legal representation of gender identity, and the visual politics of post-conflict societies, while maintaining her foundational research on historical propaganda and contemporary branding practices.
- Graham Foundation Grant
- Getty Grant Program
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
- Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) Grant
- Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts Fellowship
Fiss has served as Jury Chair for USA Artists Awards in Architecture and Design (2010) and on selection panels for USA fellowships (2009). Her curatorial work includes co-curating Necessary Force: Art in a Police State (2015) and serving as film curator for Encounters with the 1930s at Madrid's Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (2012-2013), where she curated the film program Cinema of the 1930s: Blue Flowers in a Catastrophic Landscape.
Fiss maintains active engagement with international artistic communities through residencies such as her 2015 residency at Sàn Art in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and collaborations with institutions including Columbia University, University of California Berkeley, and Berlin's Schwules Museum.
