Wolff, Lesley

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Education

2005 Bard College, B.A.
2013 Florida State University, M.A.
2018 Florida State University, Ph.D.

Courses Taught

Introduction to Museum Studies
Contemporary Art

Career Specialties

Lesley Wolff specializes in the modern and contemporary visual art of the Americas, with an emphasis on the critical relationships among food, gender, race and nationalism. Wolff's research is informed by her previous career as a professional cook and baker as well as her experiences working for museums in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to teaching and writing, Wolff also curates exhibitions that engage with contemporary Latinx and Diasporic art and heritage.

Professional and Community Activities

Wolff is currently completing two book projects, the first of which is a single-authored monograph on the relationship between art and food in postrevolutionary Mexico City. This project, tentatively titled Hungry Eyes: Picturing Indigeneity and Foodways in Postrevolutionary Mexico City, is under advanced contract with the University of Texas Press and has been supported by various awards and fellowships. Her second book project, Nourish and Resist: Food and Feminisms in Contemporary Global Caribbean Art, is an interdisciplinary study of contemporary Caribbean art through intersectional, decolonial, and planetary lenses. She is co-editor of Nourish and Resist alongside Hannah Ryan (St. Olaf College), and together they look forward to transforming this edited volume into an international working group on food, feminism and art in the coming years.

Previously, Wolff has published her research in art historical and interdisciplinary venues such as Humanities; International Journal of Heritage Studies; Food, Culture & Society; and African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, among others, and she has articles forthcoming in the edited volume Creolization and Trans-Atlantic Blackness: The Visual and Material Cultures of Slavery (ed. Charmaine Nelson) and a special issue on food and sovereignty of the international journal Gender and History. Wolff is also co-editor, with Gabriela Germana, of the forthcoming special issue of the international, open-access journal Arts, which will be dedicated to 'Rethinking Contemporary Latin American Art.' This scholarship also informs Wolff’s curatorial work, including the ongoing project The Kingdom of This World, Reimagined, a group exhibition of contemporary artists of the Caribbean diaspora that dialogues with the region’s revolutionary history (www.kotwexhibition.com).  

In all aspects of her work, whether research, writing, curating or teaching, Wolff strives to prioritize collaboration, decoloniality, accessibility and conversation. Her work brings her into contact with contemporary artists, art historical archives, museums, and educational institutions across the globe. She regularly chairs and contributes to conferences, panels, workshops and other events related to the arts of the Americas. As an executive officer with the Association for Latin American Art (ALAA), Wolff is currently co-organizing the 2023 ALAA Triennial Symposium, which will take place in Mexico City and focus on new approaches to the archives in Latinx and Latin American art.  

 

Honors and Awards

Select External Awards:

William R. Levin Award for Research in the History of Art, after 1750, Southeastern College Art Conference (2021)

Excellence in the Field Award, Texas Association of Schools of Art (2020)

Honorable Mention, Best Essay in Latin American Visual Culture Studies, “From Raw to Refined:  Edouard Duval-Carrié’s Sugar Conventions,” Latin American Studies Association (2020)

Graduate Research and Creativity Award (Humanities Division), The Graduate School, Florida State University (2018)

Select External Fellowships and Residencies:

Art Historian in Residence, Arquetopia Foundation, Puebla, Mexico (2022)

Tyson Scholar of American Art Fellowship, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas (2019–2020)

Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship Endowment, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas (2019–2020)

Postdoctoral Fellowship, American Art, Curatorial Department, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida (2018–2019)