David Felshin

David Felshin
Name	David Felshin
Birth date	0 194?
Birth place	Boston, Massachusetts
Occupation	Curator, museum curator, art historian
Employer	Wadsworth Atheneum, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Museum of Modern Art
Notable works	"The Art of Performance", "Fluxus and Beyond"
Awards	Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grant

David Felshin

David Felshin is an American curator and historian known for curatorial work connecting performance art, Fluxus, conceptual art, and contemporary exhibition practices. He has held positions at institutions including the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and the Museum of Modern Art, and has organized exhibitions and written catalog essays engaging figures such as Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramović, John Cage, and Allan Kaprow. His scholarship and exhibitions intersect with collections, biennials, and academic programs at places like the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Tate Modern, the Walker Art Center, the Centre Pompidou, and the Guggenheim Museum.

Early life and education

Felshin was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up during the postwar expansion of American museums and avant-garde movements alongside contemporaries in New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He completed undergraduate studies at Tufts University before pursuing graduate training in art history and curatorial practice at institutions such as Harvard University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. During his formative years he studied archives and primary sources related to Fluxus, Happenings, and early performance art at repositories including the New York Public Library and the archives of the Walker Art Center and the Getty Research Institute.

Career and major works

Felshin's early curatorial work included exhibitions and programs at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston where he collaborated with artists and scholars associated with Minimalism, Postminimalism, and Conceptual Art. He later held curatorial roles at the Wadsworth Atheneum and contributed to projects at the Museum of Modern Art that linked historical avant-garde practices to contemporary performance, sound art, and installation. Major curated exhibitions and catalogs attributed to his career explore intersections of performance art, Fluxus, and experimental music, bringing together figures such as Nam June Paik, La Monte Young, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and Fluxus practitioners.

Among his published works and exhibition catalogs are titles that examine the legacies of Allan Kaprow and Yoko Ono alongside broader surveys connecting John Cage and Cageian aesthetics to contemporary practices. Felshin has contributed essays and curatorial texts to collections and monographs associated with academic presses and museum publications, and has served as a guest curator for festivals and biennials that featured artists like Marina Abramović, Chris Burden, Vito Acconci, Carolee Schneemann, and Laurie Anderson.

Research and contributions

Felshin’s research foregrounds archival reconstruction, oral history, and the material documentation of ephemeral events, linking archives and institutional collections at the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and university special collections. He has emphasized cross-disciplinary dialogues involving composers, choreographers, poets, and visual artists, drawing connections among John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, and practitioners of electronic music and sound art. His contributions include critical reassessments of the role of the curator in staging performance, the mediation of time-based work within museum contexts, and the reinstallation of works by artists such as Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik.

Felshin has also participated in academic symposia and panels with scholars and curators from institutions such as Columbia University, New York University, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Courtauld Institute of Art, collaborating with historians and critics including Rosalind Krauss, Hal Foster, T.J. Clark, Lucy Lippard, and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh on topics related to avant-garde networks, pedagogy, and museum practice. His methodological approaches combine object-based analysis with performance documentation and artist interviews, contributing to evolving standards for cataloging and presenting ephemeral art.

Awards and honors

Felshin’s work has been recognized with fellowships and grants, including support from foundations and agencies such as the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and university research fellowships at institutions like Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley. He has been invited as a visiting lecturer and adjunct faculty member at programs in contemporary art and curatorial studies at School of Visual Arts, Columbia University School of the Arts, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has received honors from professional organizations including the Association of Art Museum Curators and regional arts councils.

Personal life and legacy

Felshin has maintained close collaborations with artists, scholars, and institutions across the United States and Europe, sustaining networks that include curators and critics from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Serpentine Galleries, the Schirn Kunsthalle, and the Kunsthalle Basel. His legacy is evident in contemporary archival practices for time-based art, influencing curatorial curricula at programs such as the Royal College of Art and the Bard College Graduate Center. Colleagues and students cite his exhibitions and writings in relation to pedagogical efforts that connect historical avant-garde movements to current museum practices involving artists like Tino Sehgal, Olafur Eliasson, Theaster Gates, and Kara Walker.

Category:American curators Category:Art historians