Institute of Contemporary Art Miami ICA Miami

Ellen Y. Tani is an art historian and curator who uses critical race studies to explore the intersection of American art history and contemporary art history, with a particular focus on conceptual- and performance-oriented practices. She is currently Assistant Professor of Art History in the College of Art and Design at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her research examines how contemporary artists work to illuminate structures of exploitation and inequality that operate below and beyond the threshold of visibility. It has been supported by the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African and African American Studies at the University of Virginia, the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University, the Clark Art Institute, the Getty Research Institute, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. After earning her PhD in Art History from Stanford University, she worked as a curator at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and the ICA Boston, and brings an artist-centric practice to her scholarship. She has authored numerous essays in exhibition catalogs and peer-reviewed publications, including Art Journal, American Quarterly, and Panorama. She is currently developing the first scholarly monograph on the conceptual artist Charles Gaines.