Nicole Woods

Nicole L. Woods is a historian of modern and contemporary art history, criticism, and theory with a focus on the neo-avant-garde, performance, gender studies, and the history of photography. Her current book project is the first in-depth study of the diverse art objects, performances, environmental works, visual poems, and publishing activities of the American Fluxus artist Alison Knowles. A second project examines the convergence of feminism, political radicalism, and expanded media practices in the 1960s-70s. Woods’s present research also includes a consideration of the widespread use of food as an object of contemplation, consumption, critique, and display in the work of several late 20th century artists, including Knowles, Martha Rosler, Gordon Matta-Clark, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Her essays and criticism have appeared in publications such as X-TRA: A Contemporary Art Quarterly, Performance Research, and Radical Philosophy. Before joining the AAHD department at Notre Dame, she taught at the University of California, Irvine and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles.