Dr. Huey Copeland

Huey Copeland’s work interrogates African/Diasporic, American, and European artistic praxis from the late 18th-century to the present with an emphasis on articulations of Blackness in the Western visual field. In his research, Copeland focuses on the intersections of race and gender, subject and object, the aesthetic and its others, from a Black feminist perspective that reveals the biases and elisions of the discipline. 

An editor of October and a former contributing editor of Artforum, Copeland has published in numerous periodicals, international exhibition catalogues, and essay collections. His research interests are reflected by his course offerings, which range from an introductory survey focused on Euro-American modernisms to the graduate seminar Visual Study after Intersectionality.

Alongside his work as a teacher, critic, editor, scholar, and administrator, Copeland co-curated exhibitions including Interstellar Low Ways (with Anthony Elms), and co-organized international conferences like Afro-Pessimist Aesthetics (with Sampada Aranke). Prior to arriving at Pitt, he taught at the University of California Berkeley, Northwestern University, and the University of Pennsylvania.