julia elizabeth neal

Art historian and writer julia elizabeth neal (she/her) specializes in modern and contemporary art in the United States, with a particular focus on conceptual and performance-based practices by Black artists engaging politics of identity and (trans)nationalism since the “post-war” era. Her current project, Who Taught You to Think (Like That): Benjamin Patterson’s Conceptual Aesthetic historicizes the artist’s persistent practice of deconstructing sociocultural perceptions and value systems. Presently Neal is “dissertating” to complete doctoral candidacy at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation is supported by the German-American Fulbright Commission, the Terra Foundation for American Art, and the Getty Research Institute.
As consultant to the Estate of Benjamin Patterson, Neal completed Performance Works within the Estate of Benjamin Patterson: A Catalogue Raisonné Volume I (October 2020, pp. 1-118, forthcoming), the first medium-specific volume inventorying works in-situ in Hamburg. Neal has contributed research and writing for varied institutions and periodicals, including Suzanne Jackson: Five Decades, Texte zur Kunst, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, all-over Magazin für Kunst und Äesthetik, and Common Wealth: Art by African Americans in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Neal has since pursued professional projects keen to critical historiography and African American Art history, which involves lecturing at Georgia State University and participating in panels at the College Art Association’s Annual Conference with regard to critical and liberatory pedagogies.