Katherine Behar

Katherine Behar is an interdisciplinary artist and critical theorist of new media and is Associate Professor of New Media Arts at Baruch College. Prof. Behar’s work explores digital culture through feminism and materialism. Her artwork spans interactive installation, performance art, public art, photography and video art to explore contemporary digital culture. Her projects mix low and high technologies, creating hybrid forms that are by turns humorous and sensuous.
 
Prof. Behar’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in private collections. Her survey exhibition and catalog, Katherine Behar: Data's Entry | Veri Girişi, was presented in 2016 at the Pera Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, documenting eight years’ of her work. Behar's survey exhibition and catalog, Katherine Behar: Data's Entry | Veri Girişi, was presented in 2016 at the Pera Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, documenting eight years' of her work. Robert Morris University presented her solo exhibition Katherine Behar: Anonymous Autonomous in 2018. A previous solo exhibition, Katherine Behar: E-Waste, premiered with catalog at University of Kentucky in 2014, and traveled to Boston Cyberarts Gallery in 2015. Additional recent venues include Judson Memorial Church in New York, SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York, Leubsdorf Gallery in New York, Wassaic Project in New York, Lesley Heller Workspace in New York, the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Sector 2337 in Chicago, The Alice in Seattle, Moscow Biennial Special Projects in Moscow, Russia; De Balie Centre for Culture and Politics in Amsterdam, Netherlands; CamouFlash in Dresden, Germany; the Digital Live Art Festival in Leeds, England; PostsovkhoZ 6 in Mooste, Estonia; Galata Perform in Istanbul, Turkey; the National Museum of Art in Cluj-Napoca, Romania; and numerous others.
 
Prof. Behar writes and lectures widely on object-oriented feminism, technologized labor, cyborgian ethics, feminist media critique, and decelerationist aesthetics. She coined the term “object-oriented feminism” (OOF) in 2010. She is the editor of Object-Oriented Feminism (University of Minnesota Press), the coeditor with Emmy Mikelson of And Another Thing: Nonanthropocentrism and Art (punctum books), and the author of Bigger than You: Big Data and Obesity (punctum books). Her exhibition catalogues include Katherine Behar: Data’s Entry | Veri Girişi (Pera Museum, 2016) and Katherine Behar: E-Waste (Tuska Center for Contemporary Art, 2014). Additional writing has been published in books including After the “Speculative Turn”: Realism, Philosophy, and Feminism, Why Look at Plants? The Botanical Emergence in Contemporary Art, and Imperceptibly and Slowly Opening; in journals including Chiasma, Lateral, Media-N, Parsons Journal for Information Mapping, Visual Communication Quarterly, EXTENSIONS: The Online Journal for Embodied Technology; and in conference proceedings for Digital Arts and Culture, SPIE, and Cyberworlds.
 
Prof. Behar’s ongoing project, Disorientalism, is a decade-long multimedia performance art collaboration with Arizona-based artist Marianne M. Kim. Disorientalism studies the disorienting effects of technologized labor, junk culture, and consumerism. Using live performance, video, and photographic projects, Disorientalism explores how these forces mediate race, gender, and bodies. Disorientalism has presented numerous solo exhibitions and performances at venues including Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Artspace West at Arizona State University, Rapid Pulse Festival, TECHNE at University at Buffalo, and Feldman Gallery + Project Space at Pacific Northwest College of Art, among others. Notable group exhibitions include: de la Cruz Collection, Poznan Biennial, Wassaic Project, Katherine Nash Gallery, Radiator Arts, and video_dumbo. Disorientalism attended residencies at The MacDowell Colony, Wassaic Project, and Cannonball.
 
Behar is the recipient of fellowships from Nida Art Colony (2018), The MacDowell Colony (2017, 2013), Pioneer Works Tech Lab (2017), Art Journal (2010-2013), and the Rubin Museum of Art (2011). Her artwork has been supported by grants and awards from the U.S. Consulate General in Leipzig, the Franklin Furnace Fund, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Cleveland Performance Art Festival. Additionally, she has received research funding and academic grants from PSC-CUNY, Arizona State University, Baruch College, New York University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as a sub-award from the National Science Foundation.

At Baruch College, Prof. Behar is Deputy Chair of Art in the Fine and Performing Arts Department and runs the New Media Arts undergraduate minor and teaches studio courses in video art and exhibition practices at Baruch College. She manages and curates at the New Media Artspace, a teaching exhibition space located in Baruch’s Newman Library. At The Graduate Center, Prof. Behar is the Deputy Director of the M.S. Program in Data Analysis and Visualization and teaches courses on data, culture, and society.