Biographical Information

Professor Tina Yapelli is the director of the University Art Gallery, a position she has held since 1985. In that role, she has originated more than sixty exhibitions of contemporary art by regional, national and international artists. Several of the exhibitions have been coorganized in cooperation with other galleries and museums, at which they also were presented. She also has organized a variety of educational programs for the University and off-campus communities, including symposia, lecture series, gallery talks and visiting artists’ residencies. As a professor of art, she offers a course each semester in Gallery Exhibition Design. She currently is developing a lecture course on video art practice, to be offered for the first time in Fall 2012.   

From 1992 to 1994, during a leave of absence from San Diego State University, Yapelli worked as curator of exhibitions at the Madison Art Center in Madison, Wisconsin. There she originated an additional ten exhibitions. She has appeared on television and radio programs to speak about visual art, and has been a guest speaker, curatorial consultant and exhibition juror at several California art institutions. An advocate for public art, Yapelli has served on numerous public art selection committees in Wisconsin and California. Her writing on contemporary art has appeared in journals in the United States, and in a book published by Telos Art Publishing in England.