Karen Moss is an art historian, curator, educator and writer based in Los Angeles. Currently, she is Acting Vice Dean for Critical Studies and teaches in the MA Curatorial Program at USC Roski School of Art and Design. Additionally, she is Adjunct Professor in the MFA program at Otis College of Art where she has been the Consulting Curator for Talking to Action, an exhibition of socially engaged artists from Los Angeles and Latin America that is Otis’ participation in the Getty Foundation’s PST LA/LA initiative. Previously Moss held senior curatorial and education positions at Orange County Museum of Art; San Francisco Art Institute; Santa Monica Museum of Art, and Walker Art Center. Earlier in her career she worked at MoCA, Los Angeles, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum. Moss received her BA in art history/studio art from UC Santa Cruz and MA and PhD in art history from University of Southern California. She has authored numerous exhibition publications and articles for art magazines and scholarly journals. Previously, Moss was Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Programs and Curator of Collections at Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) from 2005 – 2010. She co-curated State of Mind: New Art from California Circa 1970 for the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative in 2011 and subsequently the exhibition travelled to the UC Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archives, the Belkin Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver; SITE Santa Fe, the Bronx Museum of Arts, and the Smart Museum, University of Chicago. Some of her other OCMA exhibitions included: 15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol (2010) Illumination: The Paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, Agnes Pelton, Agnes Martin and Florence Pierce (2009); Disorderly Conduct: Recent Art in Tumultuous Times (2008) and Art Since the 1960s: California Experiments (2007-08). Moss was co-curator and catalogue essayist for the 2006 California Biennial and organized artists’ residencies, performances and public programs for the 2006, 2008 and 2010 biennials.
