Laurel McLaughlin

Laurel V. McLaughlin, PhD, is a curator, art historian, educator, and writer with over a decade of experience whose research and writing explores research-based sculpture, installation, new media, and social practice works. She is the Interim Director and Chief Curator at Tufts University Art Galleries, where she directs both gallery locations in Medford and Boston; commissions new works; collaborates with Tufts faculty, staff, and students; curates exhibitions, performances, screenings, and public programs; and manages the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Regranting Chapter, the Collective Futures Fund. McLaughlin holds a BA in English and Art History from Wake Forest University, MAs from The Courtauld Institute of Art and Bryn Mawr College, and a PhD from Bryn Mawr.

McLaughlin’s interdisciplinary research incorporates art history, performance studies, and cultural studies. She has shared her scholarly and curatorial work regionally, nationally, and internationally in conferences ranging from Performance Studies International, Calgary; the Universities Art Association of Canada Conference, Toronto and Montreal; the University of California, Berkeley; the Philadelphia Avant-Garde Studies Consortium, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; the College Art Association, New York; the Midwest Art Historical Society Annual Conference, Cincinnati; and the Association of the Study of the Arts of the Present, Hong Kong, among others. She frequently offers lectures and crits at institutions such as Boston University, MIT, PNCA, MECA&D, and MICA. Her research, critical art writing, and curatorial work has been published with mainstream art writing platforms Art Papers, BOMB Magazine, Burnaway, C Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Performa Magazine, and Te Magazine; peer-reviewed academic journals ASAP/Journal, Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, Contact Quarterly, Women & Performance, Performance Research, PARtake, International Journal of the Arts in Society, and Oxford University Press’s Benezit Dictionary of Artists; and catalogs, readers, and edited volumes, such as Emilio Rojas: tracing a wound through my body (Lafayette College Art Galleries, 2022) Magical Thinking (Tufts University Art Galleries, 2026); Bare Bodies—Thresholding Life(De Gruyter GmbH, 2024); The Borders of Art (American University in Cairo Press, 2026); Women’s Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance (Bloomsbury, 2026); Arnold J. Kemp: A Reader (No Place Press and Tufts University Art Galleries, 2026); How do you throw a brick through the window...(Tufts University Art Galleries and John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2026); 2026 Whitney Biennial Catalog (Yale University Press, 2026). She co-edited the multidisciplinary reader, Tania El Khoury’s Live Art: Collaborative Knowledge Production, with Carrie Robbins (Amherst College Press, 2023). She has contributed catalog essays and exhibition texts on the practices of manuel arturo abreu, Jonathan González, Mia Habib, Ulises, Mobius Artists Group, and Bergman & Salinas.

McLaughlin has organized exhibitions and programming with artist collectives Vox Populi, FJORD, AUTOMAT, after/time, in addition to non-profit organizations, museum institutions, and collegiate galleries such as NARS Foundation, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with the Arthur Ross Gallery and the ICA Philadelphia; the Center for Contemporary Art & Culture of the Pacific Northwest College of Art; and Artspace New Haven in collaboration with the Yale University Art Gallery, and Oregon Contemporary. Notably, she organized the traveling 2021–2023 survey Emilio Rojas: tracing a wound through my body (originating at Lafayette College Art Galleries, PA, followed by venues Emerson Contemporary, MA; Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, VT; and the North Carolina Museum of Art, NC), Tufts University Art Galleries, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Her research, curatorial, and grantmaking work has been supported by a Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Fellowship; the Bryn Mawr College Areté Fund; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the Terra Foundation for American Art; and the Teiger Foundation; Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, University of Pennsylvania; Ford Family Foundation; Acción Cultural Española; the Dutch Consulate, New York; Barr Foundation; Wagner Foundation; Variable West + Stelo; and Rupert.

CV available upon request.

Headshot image credit: Sam Gehrke