Draft:Gloria Sutton

Gloria Hwang Sutton (born August 20, 1972) is an American contemporary art historian whose scholarship focuses on art, technology, and feminism. Her work investigates how computational networks have influenced the production, reception, and historiography of visual art since the 1960s, approached through an intersectional lens that foregrounds gender, race, and equity.

Academic and Professional Career

Sutton is an Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Northeastern University. She is also a Research Affiliate in the Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT) program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). ^[1]

She serves on the advisory committees of the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Voices in Contemporary Art (VoCA), and Boston Art Review, and is on the editorial boards of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society and Bloomsbury’s International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics series. Her research has been supported by institutions such as the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Getty Research Institute. ^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

From 1997 to 2002, Sutton served on the advisory board of Rhizome, a pioneering nonprofit for born-digital art, helping to develop foundational frameworks for exhibiting, archiving, and theorizing internet-based practices. ^[7]

Her editorial career began at Afterimage, where she focused on the underrepresentation of minority voices in art criticism. She later became the inaugural editor of Art Journal Open, where she expanded the role of digital scholarship and public engagement in contemporary art history. Sutton co-curated the large-scale urban art exhibition in Los Angeles titled How Many Billboards? Art In Stead, organized by the MAK Center. She has also held curatorial roles at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.^[8][9][10]

Her first book, The Experience Machine: Stan VanDerBeek’s Movie-Drome and Expanded Cinema (MIT Press), was the first comprehensive study of VanDerBeek’s multimedia work and was translated into French in 2023, with a foreword by Olafur Eliasson.^[11]

Sutton’s writing has appeared in numerous landmark museum catalogues and scholarly publications, including:

• Shigeko Kubota: Liquid Reality (MoMA) ^[12]
• Shigeko Kubota: A Matter of Memory: Shigeko Kubota’s Video Sculptures (MoMA) ^[13]
• Barbara T. Smith: The Way to Be (ICA LA)
• Bruce Nauman: Neons, Corridors, Rooms (Hangar Bicocca)
• Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors (Hirshhorn Museum)
• Art in the Age of the Internet: 1989 to Today (ICA Boston)
• Julia Scher: Maximum Security Society (Museum Abteiberg/DISTANZ)
• Katalin Ladik: Ooooooooo-pus (Haus der Kunst)
• Steina: Playback (Buffalo AKG Art Museum and MIT List Visual Arts Center)

She has collaborated with artists including Jennifer Bornstein, Anna Craycroft, and Sara VanDerBeek, editing the first monograph on the latter. From 2016 to 2018, she worked with Renée Green on exhibitions and programming at Harvard’s Carpenter Center, culminating in the publication of Renée Green: Pacing (D.A.P., 2021). She also edited Radical Softness: The Responsive Art of Janet Echelman, the first comprehensive study of Echelman’s climate-responsive, large-scale soft sculptures.^[14][15]

Sutton's teaching, writing, and curatorial work advocate for feminist infrastructures, collective authorship, and the recognition of underappreciated cultural labor. She is a frequent speaker at cultural institutions globally.^[16][17]

Education

Sutton earned her BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed the Whitney Independent Study Program. She received her PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). ^[18][19]

Selected Public Talks

• Max Wasserman Forum: "Another World" (April 2021, MIT List Visual Arts Center) Participated in panel discussions "What are we Building?" and "What are the Barriers?" alongside Hito Steyerl. ^[20]
• In Conversation: Gloria Sutton & Nancy Valladares (April 5, 2025, ICA Philadelphia) ^[21]
• The Contemporary Austin – “In Conversation: Gloria Sutton, Josh Kline & Alex Klein” (November 13, 2024) Discussion in conjunction with the Carl Cheng: Nature Never Loses exhibition. ^[22]

Selected Bibliography

Radical Softness: The Responsive Art of Janet Echelman

Books

• Radical Softness: The Responsive Art of Janet Echelman, Chronicle Books, 2025. ^[23]

• The Experience Machine: Stan VanDerBeek’s Movie-Drome and Expanded Cinema, MIT Press, 2015. ^[24][25]

Selected Essays and Publications

• “The Politics of Breath,” in Atem/Breath, De Gruyter, 2022.
• “My Stakes are Not Your Stakes,” in Storytellers of Art History, Intellect Publishers, 2021. ^[26]
• “Acts of Dispersion in Renée Green’s Within Living Memory,” in Renée Green: Pacing, 2020.
• “Algorithmic Behavior,” in Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Unstable Presence, 2020. ^[27]
• “Hans Haacke: Works of Art, 1963–72,” in Hans Haacke: All Connected.^[28]
• “Elaine Summers’s Intermedia,” in Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done, MoMA, 2018. ^[29]
• “Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular,” Woman’s Art Journal, Spring/Summer 2018. ^[30]
• “CTRL ALT DEL: The Problematics of Post Internet Art,” in Art in the Age of the Internet, 2018. ^[31]
• “The Human-Machine Interface,” in 3D DoubleVision, LACMA, 2018. ^[32]
• “Reception Theory,” in Pipilotti Rist, Phaidon, 2016.
• “The Principle of Self Organization,” in Rosa Barba: The Color Out of Space, 2016. ^[33]
• “Intentional Communities,” in Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957, 2015. ^[34]
• “Image as Action,” in Rite of Passage: Vienna Actionism, 2014. ^[35]
• “Remarks on the Writings of Renée Green,” in Other Planes of There, Duke University Press, 2014. ^[36]

Reviews of The Experience Machine: Stan VanDerBeek’s Movie-Drome and Expanded Cinema

• Johanna Gosse, “A Machine in the Garden,” Oxford Art Journal, 2018. ^[37]
• Michael Corris, “Not Virtual,” Art History, Spring 2017. ^[38]
• Craig J. Saper, “The Other/ness Media Machine,” Rhizomes, 2017.^[39]
• Stephen Petersen, “The Experience Machine,” Leonardo Reviews, 2016.^[40]
• A.S. Hamrah, “The Experience Machine,” Cineaste Magazine, Fall 2015. ^[41]

References

1. "Research Discovery Portal". discover-research.northeastern.edu. June 25, 2025. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
2. "Gloria Sutton - Grantees - Arts Writers Grant". www.artswriters.org. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
3. "The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Announces 2021 Grantees". The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. December 1, 2021. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
4. "Board of Directors". voca.network. 2025. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
5. "Gloria Sutton". Boston Art Review. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
6. "Gloria Sutton - Grantees - Arts Writers Grant". www.artswriters.org. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
7. sutton, gloria. "Gloria Sutton - Northeastern University". neu.academia.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
8. Hodge, Brooke (2010-02-18). "Seeing Things | The Art of the Billboard". T Magazine. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
9. "How Many Billboards? Art In Stead". MAK Center for Art and Architecture. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
10. Greene, Rachel; Sutton, Gloria; Fuller, Matthew (2002-04-01). "Voiceover". Afterimage. 29 (5): 10–10. doi:10.1525/aft.2002.29.5.10. ISSN 0300-7472.
11. "Gloria Sutton: The Experience Machine, Stan VanDerBeek's Movie-Drome and Expanded Cinema". Northeastern University. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
12. "Shigeko Kubota: Liquid Reality - Hardcover". MoMA Design Store. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
13. Sutton, Gloria (Sep 17, 2021). "A Matter of Memory: Shigeko Kubota's Video Sculptures". www.moma.org. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
14. "Radical Softness". Chronicle Books. Retrieved 2025-06-24.
15. "Meet the Contributors: Gloria Sutton". Shah Garg Foundation. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
16. "Art + Design Professor Gloria Sutton Speaks at International Symposium Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Bauhaus". College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD). Retrieved 2025-06-24.
17. "Inevitable Distances: A Conversation between Renée Green and Gloria Sutton | Barnard College". barnard.edu. 2023-11-15. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
18. "Gloria Sutton and Henry Rath". The New York Times. 2005-08-07. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
19. "Ph.D. Recipients". Art History. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
20. "2021 Max Wasserman Forum on Contemporary Art: Another World | MIT List Visual Arts Center". listart.mit.edu. 2022-01-13. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
21. Clottey, Brittany (2025-03-22). "In Conversation: Gloria Sutton, American Artist, and Nancy Valladares - ICA Philadelphia". Institute of Contemporary Art - Philadelphia, PA. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
22. "In Conversation: Gloria Sutton, Josh Kline & Alex Klein Presented in Conjunction with Carl Cheng: Nature Never Loses". The Contemporary Austin. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
23. "Radical Softness". PA Press. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
24. Petersen, Stephen (2016-10-01). "The Experience Machine: Stan VanDerBeek's Movie-Drome and Expanded Cinema". Leonardo. 49 (5): 473–474. doi:10.1162/LEON_r_01314. ISSN 0024-094X.
25. "Gloria Sutton - Team – bauhaus imaginista". www.bauhaus-imaginista.org. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
26. "Storytellers". Alpesh Kantilal Patel. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
27. "Wayback Machine" (PDF). d-scholarship.pitt.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-11-17. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
28. "Prints". New Museum Digital Archive. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
29. "Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done - Paperback". MoMA Design Store. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
30. Sutton, Gloria (2018-03-22). "Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular". Woman's Art Journal. 39 (1): 43–46.
31. Sutton, Gloria (2018-01-01). ""CTRL ALT DEL: The Problematics of Post Internet Art," Art in the Age of the Internet edited by Eva Respini (New Haven, CT: ICA Boston and Yale University Press, 2018):58- 65". Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today edited by Eva Respini.
32. Salvesen, Britt; Banchoff, Thomas; Drysdale, Eric E.; Huhtamo, Erkki; Rottman, Zachary; Sutton, Gloria (2018). 3D: double vision. Nicholas Barlow, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ISBN 978-3-7913-5668-6.
33. Barba, Rosa; Huldisch, Henriette; Brooks, Victoria; Sutton, Gloria (2016). The color out of space: Rosa Barba. List Visual Arts Center. Cambridge, Mass: MIT List Visual Arts Center. ISBN 978-0-9853377-9-7.
34. "Communitas … After Black Mountain College - Articles – bauhaus imaginista". www.bauhaus-imaginista.org. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
35. "Rite of passage : the early years of Vienna actionism 1960-1966 : Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch, Otto Muehl, Rudolf Schwarzkogler / editor, Hubert Klocker | Smithsonian Institution". www.si.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
36. "Other Planes of There". www.dukeupress.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
37. Gosse, Johanna (2018). Sutton, Gloria (ed.). "?A Machine in the Garden?". Oxford Art Journal. 41 (1): 127–131. ISSN 0142-6540.
38. Corris, Michael (2017). "Not Virtual Art History". Research Gate. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
39. Saper, Craig (2017). "The Other/ness Media Machine Review by Craig Saper" (PDF). Rhizomes. Retrieved June 24, 2025.
40. "Leonardo Reviews". Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University. Retrieved 2025-06-24.
41. "Home". Cineaste Magazine. Retrieved 2025-06-25.