Tirza Latimer

Tirza True Latimer publishes work from a lesbian feminist perspective on a range of topics in the fields of visual culture, sexual culture, and criticism. She is coeditor, with Whitney Chadwick, of the anthology The Modern Woman Revisited: Paris Between the Wars (Rutgers University Press, 2003); author of Women Together / Women Apart: Portraits of Lesbian Paris (Rutgers University Press, 2005); and co-author, with the art historian Wanda Corn, of Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories (University of California Press, 2011). She regularly contributes to SFMOMA's Open Space blog.

She also is an independent curator whose recent exhibitions include Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories (2011-2012, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.), Making Room for Wonder (2008, SomArts Gallery, San Francisco); Unexpected Developments (2006, PLAySPACE, CCA, San Francisco); and Acting Out: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore (2005, Judah L. Magnes Museum, Berkeley; Frye Museum, Seattle; Jersey Heritage Trust, Isle of Jersey). She is a member of the curatorial collective that organizes the annual National Queer Arts Festival exhibition at SomArts Gallery, San Francisco, every June.

Tirza's teaching--like her research, curation, and criticism--explores the politics of visual culture. Her interests include the historical formation of non-normative identities/communities/networks; contemporary queer culture; collaborative and participatory art practices; self-representation; art activism; social practice; institutional critique; performance art; culture wars; and canon formation. She is an active member and former cochair of the Queer Caucus for Art, a College Art Association–affiliated society.