Kathy Rae Huffman is an American curator, writer, producer, researcher, lecturer, and expert for video and media art. Since the early 1980s, Huffman is said to have helped establish video and new media art, online and interactive art, installation and performance art in the visual arts world. She has curated, written about, and coordinated events for numerous international art institutes, consulted and juried for festivals and alternative arts organisations. Huffman not only introduced video and digital computer art to museum exhibitions, she also pioneered tirelessly to bring television channels and video artists together, in order to show video artworks on TV. From the early 1990s until 2014, Huffman was based in Europe, and embraced early net art and interactive online environments, a curatorial practice that continues. In 1997, she co-founded the Faces mailing list and online community for women working with art, gender and technology. Till today, Huffman is working in the US, in Canada and in Europe.
Education Huffman received an MFA in Exhibition Design (with distinction) from the School of Fine Art, California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) in 1979 under the supervision of Stacy Dukes, with a second major in Radio/Film/Television. She also completed a two-year postgraduate certificate program in Gallery and Museum Studies from CSULB, under the guidance of Constance Glenn, in 1980. She holds a Life Membership Awarded, Phi Kappa Phi honor society.
As an art student in the 1970s, Huffman supported herself with a part-time job as 'staff artist' for the Long Beach Public Library system, one of the first institutions to acquire portable video equipment. She used the Sony Portapak to document library events. To learn more about video and its potential as a tool for artmaking, she joined the Museum Studies course at CSULB. Huffman met the video artist Bill Viola in 1976 and began to work in collaboration with him on his ambitious project, the interactive video and sound installation Olfaction. It was presented at the final group exhibition 'Beyond the Artists' Hand' for the Museum Studies course. Olfaction worked perfectly for the entire exhibition; since then, Huffman has tried to match that level of achievement for every show she curated. Interview by Josephine Bosma with Kathy Rae Huffman, 1998
In 1977, then deputy director at the Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA), David Ross, invited Huffman to complete her 6-month professional internship, the final requirement of the CSULB Museum Studies course. From 1977 till 1979, Huffman was Video Coordinator for the Los Angeles-based non-profit organization "Some Serious Business, Inc" (directed by Nancy Drew, Susan Martin, and Elizabeth Freeman), and she managed numerous video screening events and Southern California cable television series in collaboration with the LBMA, like the artists program 'Made for TV', organized by 'The Kitchen' (New York City). In 1978, Huffman was assistant curator and exhibition designer for Streamline Moderne, a survey of household objects, vehicles, and graphic design of the 1930s and 1940s. Curator was Stacy Dukes at the CSULB Art Gallery. In 1979, Huffman coordinated Picturephone Performance, a live performance by Nam June Paik and numerous invited artists, between Los Angeles and New York.
Professional practice Long Beach Museum of Art, 1979 - 1984 Huffman was appointed Chief Curator at the Long Beach Museum of Art in Long Beach, California in late 1979, after she had served one year as the Video Coordinator for curator Nancy Drew. Under her direction, she established LBMA Video as a regional media art center, with fundraising for a multimedia workshop and broadcast quality post-production facility for artists at a former (and unused) police precinct in Belmont Shore (a hip, young Long Beach community). This media art center included technical services, video editing studios, a videotape and media art library, production equipment for loan, a performance space, exhibition program, and a visiting artist programme. LBMA Video collaborated with the local cable TV station to produce and present artists on TV, and operated an open-door policy, allowing artists from around the world to use its facility. Huffman curated and produced several media art installations in the LBMA, including installations by Gary Hill, Bill Viola, Eleanor Antin, Dara Birnbaum, Laurie Anderson, Ant Farm, Nan Hoover.Website of Nan Hoover: List of solo exhibitionsNan Hoover: Her artistic journey as an exploration of light and shadow, by Kathy Rae Huffman, 2022, published on the website of the Nan Hoover Foundation Exhibitions curated and produced by Huffman (selection):
Hole in Space Huffman curated and produced the exhibition Hole in Space at the LBMA in 1980, a groundbreaking live communication sculpture by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (K&S). Hole in Space was the first public video chat, linking large displays on public squares in New York and Los Angeles with a satellite feed. This engineering prototype illustrated K&S's vision of large screen teleconferencing. A Hole in Space LA-NY, 1980 - the mother of all video chats. 30 minutes video documentation Electronic Cafe: Kit Galloway & Sherrie Rabinowitz - a quarter century of pioneering artistic achievements 1975-2000
California video As US Commissioner at the Paris Biennial, and curator of a survey of new video from California, Huffman presented the exhibition California Video as the American Selection in the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1980. The exhibition toured (with a catalog) through 1982. Catalog: California Video, Long Beach Museum of Art, 1980
The Artist and Television Huffman was the West Coast segment producer for the live 3-hour television event The Artist and Television, initiated by Jaime Davidovich. It was a live interactive teleconference that took place in Iowa City, Los Angeles, and New York City in October 1982. Artists, curators, critics and performers in all three cities interacted with each other via satellite, conducting interviews and presenting live art and musical performances. The event was broadcast nationwide through the American Television and Communications Corporation and ACSN (The Learning Channel). The issues discussed included video as an art medium and the accessibility of broadcast television for artists. The event was produced as a collaboration of the Long Beach Museum of Art, the University of California (Los Angeles), and the University of Iowa. The Artist and Television, three videotapes that document this live interactive teleconference from 1982 One of the most successful projects, where artists could try out live performance from three points for the first time ever: Atari is the New Parent, by John Sturgeon. John Sturgeon: Atari is the New Parent - a project in the framework of The Artist and Television, 1982
The Artist and the Computer Curator of the first west coast survey of the use of computers in artmaking, including workshops, demonstrations, lectures and performances at the Long Beach Museum of Art, and collaborating institutions California State University Long Beach, and University of Southern California, January–February 1983. It was a pioneering overview of how computers were utilized in various media (video, sculpture, printmaking, photography, installation, performance and drawing).
At Home: Ten Years of Feminist Art in Southern California A retrospective of Womanhouse artists, October 1983. Huffman was event coordinator for the regional Los Angeles county initiative to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Womanhouse (since 1972) and the founding of the Southern California feminist movement. More than fifty institutions or groups participated in the month-long calendar of events. Huffman also coordinated and co-curated Haunted Womanhouse, a feminist performance festival on the Long Beach Museum of Art grounds, and was co-curator, with Lyn Blumenthal, of the video exhibition Roles Relationships and Sexuality. Nancy Buchanan resume
Shared Realities Executive producer of the Long Beach Museum of Art's cable television series, including interviews, artists' videotapes, and special projects. Huffman initiated the statewide conference called Shared Realities, held in Long Beach, aboard the Queen Mary, 1983. Interview by Josephine Bosma with Kathy Rae Huffman, 1998
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Boston / The CAT Fund
1984-1991, Huffman was Adjunct Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts. The ICA was Boston's premiere educational and exhibition space for contemporary art. As adjunct curator, Huffman contributed exhibition concepts, community projects, and collaborations with local, regional and national media organizations.
Huffman was appointed curator/producer of The Contemporary Art Television Fund / The CAT Fund, a pilot project of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and WGBH-TV's New Television Workshop, Boston's public television station, with a mandate to create a context for artists to define television as a medium for their personal expression. Funded initially by the Massachusetts Art Council, The CAT Fund was designed to play an active role in the development of artists' TV internationally. Experimental TV Center: The Contemporary Art Television Fund
Compared to Southern California, the East Coast seemed to Huffman more theoretical and political. The ICA Boston (directed by David Ross) was a very studious environment. Beside this stronger intellectual inspiration, Huffman had the opportunity to be more involved with artists working with digital processes. She commissioned one of Bill Seaman's early interactive computer works and presented exhibitions using digital technology. Artists commissioned for 'The CAT Fund' included (among others): Laurie Anderson, Bill Viola, Tony Oursler, Constance DeJong, Joan Jonas, Dara Birnbaum, Raul Ruiz, Marcel Odenbach, Bill Seaman, Daniel Reeves, Ken Feingold, Chip Lord, Doug Hall, Ilene Segalove, William Wegman and Michael Smith. Ars Electronica Center: Kathy Rae Huffman about the Contemporary Art Television Fund, 1986
The Arts for Television A major touring exhibition, commissioned by MOCA in Los Angeles. Huffman was co-curator with Dorine Mignot, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Julie Lazar, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Los Angeles, of the first museum survey to examine television as a form and forum for the contemporary arts. The exhibition premiered simultaneously in the Netherlands and the United States in 1987, and traveled to more than one dozen institutions in Europe and North America in 1988 and 1989. The Arts for Television catalog MOMA 1989: The Arts for Television
TIME CODE Huffman was series initiator and US producer of the international television magazine TIME CODE, a non-verbal artists collaboration, co-produced with Channel 4 (UK), RTBF (Belgium), NOS (Netherlands), TVE (Spain) and ZDF (Germany). The series continued until 1990, with various countries coordinating the submissions and international broadcast schedule. Program one, Sense of Place, included TIME SQUARED by Branda Miller, 1987.
Deconstruction, Quotation and Subversion: Video from Yugoslavia Huffman was guest curator for this show at Artists Space in New York City, 1989. The exhibition was presented at Artists Space and the ICA in Boston. Videodokument - a comprehensive overview of thirty years of video art in Slovenia. Chronology, see 1989
VGTV - All America Tour Boston Residency for Van Gogh TV and tour coordinator for VGTV presentations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Omaha, and New York City. The tour began with a live 4-hour interactive broadcast event in Boston from Continental Cable Television, January 1991.
Freelance Curatorial Projects and Productions 1991-1998