Dr. Christine Filippone

Biography

Christine Filippone is Professor of Art History at Millersville University of Pennsylvania.  She was awarded the Terra Foundation for American Art Senior Fellowship by the Smithsonian Institution (SAAM) in 2021 for her current book project Systems and Utopias of Process in Latin American Conceptual Art. This book examines the intersection of systems theory and political utopias in Latin American conceptual art of the 1960s and 70s. Her essay on this topic, “Desalineación: Open Systems as Social Transformation in Tucumán Arde” was published in the book Nervous Systems: Art, Systems, and Politics Since the 1960s (Duke University Press, 2022) edited by Tim Stott and Johanna Gosse.  Filippone received the 2017 SECAC Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication for her last book Science, Technology, and Utopias: Women Artists and Cold War America (Routledge Press, 2017), which examines feminist aesthetic approaches to science and technology.  Her research has been supported by a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship, an American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and a Guggenheim Fellowship from the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Filippone also has significant experience in museums and galleries.  She served as Executive Director of The Print Center in Philadelphia (founded in 1915 as The Print Club), an art gallery and store dedicated to contemporary printmaking and photography. She has also worked in curatorial departments at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, International Center of Photography in New York and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.   

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Research Interests

Extending beyond the confines of art history, Dr. Filippone’s research examines feminist aesthetic approaches to science and technology during the Cold War.  For artists working in this period, military, domestic and communication technologies represented a conceptual realm of investigation replete with negative associations in the wake of the Vietnam War, but new discoveries in these fields simultaneously suggested alternative social and environmental relationships in the context of the American women’s movement. Other research interests include; Latin American conceptual art, the intersections of art and systems theory, posthumanism, eco-art, and queer studies.

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Courses Taught

• Contemporary Art (Art 404)
• 20th Century Art (Art 304)
• History of Photography (Art 201)
• Posthumanism in 20th & 21st Century Art (Art 586)
• Feminist Theory (WST 330)
• Women in Art (Art 305)
• Survey of Art II (Art 203)

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Education

• Ph.D. Art History, Rutgers University
• M.A. Art History, The Pennsylvania State University
• B.S. Art Education, The Pennsylvania State University

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Professional Affiliations

• Association for Latin American Art

• Committee on Women in the Arts, College Art Association (member, 2013-Present)

• Queer Caucus for Art, College Art Association (co-chair, curatorial committee, 2011-2014)

• The Photo Review (member Advisory Board, 2008-Present)

• American Association of University Women (AAUW)

• Society for Literature, Science and Art (SLSA)

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Selected Publications

• “Desalineación: Open Systems as Social Transformation in Tucumán Arde”, Nervous Systems: Art, Systems and Politics since the 1960s (Duke University Press, 2021)

• “For the Blood of Gaia: Betsy Damon’s Quest for Living Water”, Woman’s Art Journal 39, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 3-11.

• “Patricia Johanson: Ecological Practice as Conceptual Art”, Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts Quarterly 20 (Spring 2018): 7-14 (reprint)

• “Alice Aycock: Systems of Energy”, Sculpture 37, no. 2 (March 2018): 20-25.

• Science, Technology, and Utopias: Women Artists and Cold War America (New York: Routledge Press, October 2016). Series: Science and the Arts since 1750.

• “Patricia Johanson: Ecological Practice as Conceptual Art” Patricia Johanson’s Environmental Remedies: Connecting Soil to Water (Minneapolis, 2016): 74-89.

• “Babel on the Brink of the Digital Age,” Barbara Madsen: Noise Machine. New York: Heptameron Books, 2013

• “Ecology and Systems Thinking in the Work of Linda Stein” Woman’s Art Journal, 34:1 (Spring/Summer, 2013)

• “Cosmology and Transformation in the Work of Michelle Stuart” Woman’s Art Journal, 32:1 (Spring/Summer, 2011)

• “Eve Sussman’s The Rape of the Sabine Women” invited essay for the exhibition The Rape of the Sabine Women, The Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, July 4; September 6, 2006

• "Artur Zmijewski and Sigalit Landau” invited essays for the exhibition Memorials of Identity: New Media from the Rubell Family Collection, The Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, August 3 – October 1, 2006

• “Alice Aycock” Artists on the Edge, Douglass College and the Rutgers MFA (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Libraries, 2005): 5-11

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Broadcasted Interviews

Dr. Christine Filippone interviewed with Melinda Keefe on the topic of art conservation.  We'll talk about Keefe's restoration of Mark Rothko's painting Black on Maroon (1958) vandalized with graffiti ink in 2012 at the Tate Modern, among other topics bridging art and science.

7/17  &  7/19.2015 - NPR's The Pulse with Maiken Scott on WHYY-FM Subject: Art Conservation Bridging Art & Science Interview on NPR's "The Pulse"