Lori Cole

B.A. in Literature, Brown University, 2002. Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, New York University, 2012.

Comparative literature; modern and contemporary art history; critical theory; the Americas; the transatlantic avant-garde; periodical studies; history of photography; museum studies; media studies; art criticism.

Lori Cole has taught at New York University since 2014. Her book Surveying the Avant-Garde: Questions on Modernism, Art, and the Americas in Transatlantic Magazines (Penn State University Press, 2018) examines how the genre of the questionnaire structured debates over art and national identity, yielding a self-reflexive history of modernism written by artists and critics from across Europe and the Americas. Lori received her PhD in Comparative Literature from New York University in 2012 and from 2012 to 2014 was the Charlotte Zysman Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities and a Lecturer in Fine Arts at Brandeis University. She has also taught at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art. At NYU she teaches a range of interdisciplinary courses on modern and contemporary art and literature.

Lori was a Helena Rubinstein Fellow in Critical Studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program from 2002 to 2003 and a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 2010 to 2012. In 2012 she was also a Junior Fellow at the Frick, where she researched the history of collecting photography. Prior to starting graduate school she held positions at the Dia Art Foundation, Paula Cooper Gallery, and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. She has written criticism for Artforum since 2004 and her scholarship has been published in The Journal of Art Historiography, The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, The Global South, and The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. 

Global Modernisms Research Collaborative, Center for the Humanities, New York University, 2015-present

Mellon Foundation Fellowship, The Problem of Translation, New York University, Summer 2012

Junior Research Fellowship, The Center for the History of Collecting, The Frick, Spring 2012

Joan Tisch Teaching Fellowship, The Whitney Museum of American Art, 2010-2012

Helena Rubinstein Fellow in Critical Studies, Whitney Independent Study Program, 2002-2003

Surveying the Avant-Garde: Questions on Modernism, Art, and the Americas in Transatlantic Magazines (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, Spring 2018)

“¿Qué es la vanguardia?: Ultraism Between Madrid and Buenos Aires,” Modernidad y vanguardia: rutas de intercambio entre España y Latinoamérica (1920–1970) Eds. Paula Barreiro López and Fabiola Martínez Rodríguez (Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2015) p. 127-137.

"'What is the Matter with Magazine Art?' On Censoring the Masses," Art Practical, 6.4 (May 2015).

“Alfred Stieglitz: Equivalent, 1923” and “Joseph Kosuth: Five Words in Green Neon, 1965,” The Whitney Museum of American Art. Museum Collection Handbook. (May 2015).

“‘Do you Believe in Angels?’ and Other Inquiries: Eugene Jolas’ Questionnaires for transition Magazine,” Cabinet, No. 53 (Spring 2014) p. 13-20.

“‘How do you Imagine Latin America?’: Questioning Latin American Art and Identity in Print,” The Global South, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2014) p. 110-133.

“Madrid: Questioning the Avant-Garde” The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines Volume 3: 1880–1940. Eds. Peter Brooker, Sascha Bru, Andrew Thacker, and Christian Weikop (Oxford University Press, 2013) p. 369-392.

“What is the Avant-Garde? The Questionnaire as Historiography,” Journal of Art Historiography, (December 2011).

“At the Site of State Violence: Doris Salcedo and Julieta Hanono’s Memorial Aesthetics,” Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Vol. 15 (Fall 2011) p.87-95.

“Légitime défense: From Communism and Surrealism to Caribbean Self-Definition,” Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2010).

“Revisiting the Vanguard: Duchamp in Buenos Aires,” The Popular Avant-Garde. Ed. Renée Silverman. (New York and Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010) p. 77-95.

Correspondences: Letter Writing, Literature, and Art, Fall 2018.

Image Culture: Interdisciplinary Histories of Photography, Fall 2018.

Nothingness: Art, Literature, Sound, and Screen, Spring 2018.

The Art of the Magazine, Spring 2018.

The Curatorial, Fall 2017.

What is an Interdisciplinary Methodology?, Fall 2017.

Contemporary Art and Audience, Spring 2017.

Contemporary Art and the Politics of Participation, Spring 2016.

Art / Magazines: The History of Print Culture and Art, Fall 2015.

Global Modernisms, Fall 2015.

Graduate Summer Writing Workshop, Summer 2015.

Contemporary Art and Experience, Spring 2015.

Modernism and its Others, Fall 2014.

Contested Images: Debates in the History and Theory of Photography, Fall 2014.