Faculty.

Alison Pearlman is a writer and teacher concerned with contemporary art and consumer culture. As a writer, she mixes genres and hopes to transcend niches. Her American Council on Exercise certification (1996) and work as a personal trainer to support her dissertation writing prompted her essay “AB (dominal) EX (pressionism): Notes Toward an Art Criticism for Bodybuilding” for Cakewalk (Summer/Fall 2000). Her life in Los Angeles compelled her to write “The Other Bohemia,” an attempt to define a subculture within the city’s pop-culture entertainment industry. This prize-winning essay appeared in the Southwest Review (Summer 2003). Her essay, “Chef Appeal,” in Popular Culture Review (Winter 2007), is a case study in niche consumption. It asks why, in the United States, chefs have recently become idols, and examines trends in the consumption of chef-centered media since the Food Revolution of the 1970s. “Interactive Art for a Challenged Democracy,” for X-TRA (Spring 2009), critically examines the methods of interactive art in light of challenges presented by today’s democracy-threatening conditions of cultural balkanization. Pearlman has also authored a book: Unpackaging Art of the 1980s (University of Chicago, 2003). Other past and more recent publications are featured on alisonpearlman.com.

A brief institutional history: After receiving her Ph.D. with honors from the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago (1997), she became Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, until 2001. While there, she curated a variety of projects and co-authored the comprehensive catalogue of the museum’s collection, entitled Life Death Love Hate Pleasure Pain (MCA, 2002).  She then moved to Los Angeles, and became a member of the adjunct faculty at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since the fall of 2004, she has taught in the Art Department of the California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, where she teaches modern and contemporary art as well as design history.