Laura Spitale McGough, PhD Media Study ‘18
Laura Spitale McGough, PhD Media Study ‘18
Faculty, Film Studies Program, U Mass Amherst
McGough is an art historian, curator and arts administrator who locates her practice at the intersection of contemporary visual and media arts. Her research as both a curator and a scholar focuses on artists’ appropriation of emerging technologies and is articulated through exhibitions, screenings, essays and digital humanities projects. Her current research examines the development of artist television from post-WWII experiments to the establishment of Web and app-based broadcast networks.
McGough has curated exhibitions, screenings and online content for arts organizations, festivals and museums in the U.S., Canada, and Europe at sites including the Art Gallery of Victoria, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Harvard Film Archives, the Images Festival, Washington Project for the Arts, the Walker Art Gallery, New York University and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County.
She has received grants in support of her curatorial and research initiatives from New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the British Arts Council and the Canada Council and has served as a reader and peer review panelist for a range of federal, state and private foundations including the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, the Ford Foundation and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. From 2000-2003 she served as the Multidisciplinary Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts, focusing on technology-based initiatives.
Prior to joining the Department of Art at UMass, McGough lectured at Alfred University, the Cranbrook, Academy of Art, SUNY University at Buffalo and The Corcoran College of Art and Design. She holds a B.A. from Chatham University, an M.A. from New York University and a PhD from SUNY University at Buffalo.