Dr. Gillian Sneed
Pronouns: She/Her
Associate Professor of Art History
Art History and Foundations Coordinator
School of Art and Design
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts
SDSU
Bio
Gillian Sneed (she/her) is Associate Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Design, where she also serves as Art History Area Coordinator and Graduate Advisor. Her research examines experimental practices in modern and contemporary art across the Americas, with a particular focus on gender and sexuality. Her scholarship addresses film, video, performance, conceptual art, and socially engaged art, as well as the politics informing these intersecting practices in the United States and Latin America. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in global art history and visual culture, including global modern and contemporary art, modern and contemporary Latin American art, theories and methods of art history, and histories of gender and sexuality in art.
Dr. Sneed has published articles and reviews in the Los Angeles Review of Books, caa.reviews, Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, and Texte zur Kunst, as well as the peer-reviewed journals Art History Pedagogy & Practice, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, and Woman’s Art Journal. Her reference articles have also appeared in Art History Teaching Resources and Smarthistory. Her recent publications include The Letters of Rosemary and Bernadette Mayer, 1976–1980 (Lenbachhaus/Ludwig Forum/Spike Island/Swiss Institute, 2022), co-edited with Marie Warsh, and a chapter on Brazilian women’s video art of the 1970s in the edited volume Pop Cinema (Edinburgh University Press, 2024).
She has curated exhibitions of contemporary art at various venues, including The Imaginary Amazon at SDSU’s University Art Gallery in 2024, which examined representations of the Amazon rainforest region by artists from a range of backgrounds. Dr. Sneed has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Association of Latin American Art, the Getty Foundation, and the Terra Foundation. She is a member of the College Art Association, the Latin American Studies Association, the Association of Latin American Art, and the Academic Museums and Galleries Association.
Education
- Ph.D. in Art History, Graduate Center, City University of New York, NY
- M. Phil in Art History, Graduate Center, City University of New York, NY
- M.S. in Art History, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
- B.A. in Studio Art, Mills College, Oakland, CA
Areas of Specialization
Global Modern and Contemporary Art, Art of the Americas, Latin American Art, Brazilian Art, Feminist Art, Video and Performance Art
Awards & Honors
- “School of Art and Design's Influential Faculty Award, 2024-2025,” PSFA, SDSU (May 2025)
- Honorable Mention for Best Essay in 2024, Latin American Visual Culture Award, Latin American Studies Association (June 2025)
- Outstanding Global Research and Creative Activity Award, International Affairs, SDSU (November 2024)
- “School of Art and Design's Influential Faculty Award, 2022-2023” PSFA, SDSU (May 2023)
- “Ten Best Art Books of 2022,” The Brooklyn Rail (January 2023)
Courses
ART 558, ART 559, ART 571A, ART 571B, ART 572, ART 576, ART 593, ART 660, ART 694
Research
- Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD, 2024)
- Brazil-Sustainability Initiative Seed Grant, Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies, SDSU (2024)
- SEED Grant, Division of Research and Innovation, SDSU (2023)
- Arts Alive Discovery Series Grant, SDSU (2023)
- National Endowment for the Humanities, NEH Summer Institute for Higher Education (2022)