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College / Department

College of Architecture, Art and Design

Department of Art and Design

Teaching areas

History of Art, Architecture, and Design; Critical Theory; Contemporary Art; Curation

Research areas

Visual Culture of Europe, Russia, Soviet Eurasia, 1850-present; Decolonial Theory; Cold War-era Cultures and Geopolitics; Soviet-Arab Cultural Exchanges; Global Modernisms; Memory and Trauma in the Built Environment

Education

PhD, History And Theory Of Art, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States, 2022

MA, History Of Art And Architecture, Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art, 2012

BA, History Of Art, Psychology, Amherst College, 2007

Memberships

Association of Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies, ASEEES, International, 2017 - 2023

Global Architectural Collaborative, GAC, International, 2017 - 2023

College Art Association, CAA, International, 2016 - 2023

Contact

[email protected]

Dr. Christianna Bonin

Assistant Professor

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States

Dr. Christianna Bonin is an art educator, writer, and curator. She has nearly two decades of experience working with and advising art and academic institutions, artists, and galleries. Her scholarship focuses on visual art practices from the mid nineteenth century to the present, in particular interactions between Europe, Russia, and Central Asia. Her current projects revolve around cultural politics and art's relationship to theories and expressions of identity. She is completing her first book, Soviet Orient: Art and Empire in Central Asia, 1900-75.

Publications

Christianna Bonin. Behind the Curtain: Art Dubai Looks at Middle Eastern Artists who Forged Links with the Soviet Union, March 2024

Christianna Bonin. Soviet Materialities, co-edited with Mollie Arbuthnot and Gabriella Ferrari, Manchester University Press, forthcoming

Christianna Bonin. Not Forever: 1968-1985, Caa Reviews, January (1st Quarter/Winter) 2023

Christianna Bonin. Ekaterina Muromtseva: Difference in Time,” XL Gallery, Moscow, Artforum Magazine, 2022

Christianna Bonin. Manal Aldowayan: Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai, Artforum, 2022

Christianna Bonin. “The Art of the Sixtiers in Soviet Kazakhstan, or How to Make a Portrait from a Skull,” Central Asian Survey, Volume 40, Issue 1, 2021. doi: 10.1080/02634937.2020.1863912, 2021

Christianna Bonin. “Yayoi Kusama,” Oracles: Artists’ Calling Cards, ed. Pierre Leguillon, Barbara Fédier (Edition Patrick Frey, 2017), 225-228, 2017

Christianna Bonin. “Between Wall and Paper: Rethinking Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings,” Sol LeWitt: The Well-Tempered Grid, ed. Charles W. Haxthausen (WCMA Press, 2012), 24-37. New York Book Award 2013 Recipient, Scholarly Publication, 2012

Conference Presentations

Konstantin Korovin's Borderline Modernism, Fragile Things: Material Culture And The Russian Empire, April 2024

To Paint a Cloud: Imagining Mongolian Art After Empire, April 2024

A Popular Icon: Samuel Kakaire and Soviet-Ugandan Relations, College Art Association, February 2024

“By Drawing a Cloud”: Mongolian Zurag Painting as Post-Imperial Modernity, Unfinished Empire: Visual Art And Architecture In Post-imperial Contexts 1900-2022, 19 May 2023

Central Asia: A Crossroads, Central Asia In The Curriculum, 10 April 2023

Awards and Honors

Best Art Curator 2024 - Emerging Art Icons Award, Magzoid Magazine, Dubai, May 2024

International Faculty Course Development Fellowship, United Arab Emirates Ministry of Education, January 2024

Faculty Research Grant, American University of Sharjah, June 2023

Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture Writing Fellowship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020

German Historical Institute/Max Weber Foundation Doctoral Research Fellowship, Moscow, 2018

Fulbright Research Grant, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2016