I’m an L.A.-based curator and writer. I recently served as Director of Art Initiatives at Transformations of the Human, as Editor of the Joan Jonas Knowledge Base, and as a Writer in Residence at Monument Lab.

I completed a Ph.D. from the Dept. of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. My dissertation, entitled “Left of Center: Displacements and Intersectionalities in Photographic Practices of New York and Los Angeles, 1970-1988,” traced alternative narratives of American postmodernism through the evidentiary status of the photograph, exploring diasporic artists’ deployment of photography to intervene into patterns of media and art world bias in the 1970s/80s.

I’ve previously held positions in the curatorial and publications departments of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA); The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); and Dia Art Foundation, where I organized public programs and assisted on exhibitions and publications by artists including Francis Alÿs, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Zoe Leonard, and Blinky Palermo. I’ve organized exhibitions at Deli Gallery, New York; Grice Bench, Los Angeles; and JOAN, Los Angeles; and my curatorial work has been reviewed by publications including frieze.

My writing, reviews, and interviews have been published by outlets including Aperture, Artforum, Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. I’ve also presented original research and writing at venues internationally, including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Leiden University, Netherlands; The Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona; the College Art Association Annual Conference; and Photo L.A.

I can be reached at jeanne [dot] dreskin [at] gmail.