American Artist (artist)

American artist

American Artist

Born| 1989

Altadena, California

Nationality| American
Alma mater| Whitney Independent Study program
Known for| Contemporary Art
Website| https://americanartist.us

American Artist (born 1989) is a contemporary artist working in new media, video, installation and writing.[1] They legally changed their name to American Artist in 2013, in order to re-contextualize the definition of the term "American artist"—at once taking on the name of an anonymous term while becoming the embodiment of its meaning.[2][3] Their work, in Artist's words, focuses on themes surrounding "blackness, being, and resistance in the context of networked virtual life."[4]

## Career

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In a 2022 return to Los Angeles, Artist presented newly commissioned work “Shaper of God” in a solo show at the Roy & Edna Disney CalArts Theatre (REDCAT) to great acclaim.[5]

In 2020, Artist had a solo exhibition at the Queens Museum entitled “My Blue Window,” which included a multi-media installation and app download that enabled viewers to download information on surveillance and predictive policing.[6]

Artist's 2019 solo exhibition "I’m Blue (If I Was █████ I Would Die)" at Koenig & Clinton, New York, transformed the gallery space into a seminar room for six police cadets as a way to simultaneously explore the Blue Lives Matter movement and how this is at odds with black and brown lives.[7][8]

Their work has a history of addressing police brutality and activism, such as their 2016 piece "Sandy Speaks," in which Artist created a chatbot that imagined Sandra Bland had a means to speak from behind bars, thereby fulfilling her wish posthumously to educate black youth on ways to interact with law enforcement.[9][10]

Artist's work has been exhibited at the Queens Museum, New York;[11][1] the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Koenig & Clinton, New York;[12] HOUSING, New York;[3] and The 8th Floor, New York.[13][14] They have participated in group exhibitions including Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY (2020);[15] Parallels and Peripheries, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, MI (2019); ICONICITY, Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery, Stony Brook University, NY (2019); A Wild Ass Beyond: ApocalypseRN, Performance Space New York, NY (2018) (a project in collaboration with artists Sondra Perry, Caitlin Cherry and Nora Khan);[16] Geographies of Imagination, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany (2018); I Was Raised on the Internet, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL (2018); Screenscapes, Postmasters, New York, NY (2018); Lack of Location is My Location, Koenig & Clinton, Brooklyn, NY (2017);[17] and Off Pink, The Kitchen, New York, NY (2015).[18]

Artist was named one of the "30 Young Artists to Watch in 2019" by Cultured Mag[19]

## Education

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Artist received a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in 2011. Then an M.F.A. in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design in 2015. In 2017, they participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

## References

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1. ^ a b "Queens Museum".
2. ^ Greenberger, Alex (April 26, 2019). "Black and Blue: American Artist Is Redefining How We Think About Race in the Digital Age".
3. ^ a b "An Artist Named Artist Finds Order in Digital Waste". Hyperallergic. February 8, 2018.
4. ^ "Meet American Artist". Eyebeam. November 29, 2017.
5. ^ "Shaper of God | REDCAT". www.redcat.org. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
6. ^ Reid, Tiana (November 13, 2019). "American Artist Shows How Tech Trains Us to See the World as Cops Do".
7. ^ "American Artist at Koenig & Clinton". www.artforum.com.
8. ^ Masharani, Vijay (April 3, 2019). "American Artist: I'm Blue (If I Was █████ I Would Die)". The Brooklyn Rail.
9. ^ Frank, Priscilla (September 27, 2016). "Chatbot 'Sandy Speaks' Continues Sandra Bland's Legacy Of Activism". HuffPost.
10. ^ "Dignity as aspiration: The privilege of representation + the obligation to attend in the work of Amalia Ulman + American Artist". atractivoquenobello. July 21, 2017.
11. ^ "Dismantling the Blue Gaze Magnus Schaefer on American Artist at the Queens Museum, New York". www.textezurkunst.de.
12. ^ "American Artist by Simone Leigh - BOMB Magazine". bombmagazine.org.
13. ^ "I'd Prefer Not To: 'Enacting Stillness' at The 8th Floor". Hyperallergic. December 10, 2016.
14. ^ "The Watchers". The 8th Floor.
15. ^ "Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
16. ^ Jones, Alex A. (December 11, 2018). "A Wild Ass Beyond: ApocalypseRN". The Brooklyn Rail.
17. ^ Battaglia, Andy (March 27, 2018). "Every and All: Fred Moten's Oneness as a Poet, Theorist, and Artistic Muse".
18. ^ "Dignity Images: Bayview-Hunters Point".
19. ^ "The 30 Young Artists to Know in 2019". Cultured Magazine.

## Further reading

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### Articles, chapters, and reviews

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* D'Souza, Aruna (14 February 2025). "American Artist". 4Columns. Retrieved 16 February 2025.

### Interviews

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* Artist, American (27 January 2025). "Newsmakers: American Artist on Seeing the Patterns of the Climate Crisis as LA Fires Rage". ARTnews (Interview). Interviewed by Jacobs, Harrison. OCLC 2392716. Retrieved 27 January 2025.