Photo by Bruce Powers (New Orleans, 2024)




Allison K. Young, Ph.D. is an art historian, writer, and curator based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is currently Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art History at Louisiana State University and A&M School of Art in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Allison's research focuses on postcolonial and contemporary art of the global South, with an emphasis on African and African Diaspora artists and art histories. Her scholarship centers issues surrounding migration, transnationalism, environmentalism, and social justice. She has curated exhibitions across the U.S. both independently and with institutions, and has published writing about contemporary art on academic and critical platforms including African ArtsArt Journal, Art Review, Artforum, Apollo Magazine, Africanah.org, ART AFRICA Magazine, Burnaway Magazine, the International Review of African American Art, Panorama: Journal of the Society of Historians of American Art, and Photoworks Annual, in addition to numerous international exhibition catalogues, anthologies, and books.

Allison has been a recent recipient of grant and fellowship awards from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society,  the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University, and the Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society (LSU Chapter), and an ATLAS (Award to Louisiana Artists and Scholars) from the Louisiana Board of Regents. She has been a Contributing Editor of Global Modern and Contemporary Art for Smarthistory since 2015.

curriculum vitae

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