Roselee Goldberg

Who is Roselee Goldberg?

RoseLee Goldberg is an American-based art historian, author, critic and curator. She wrote a study of performance art, Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. First published in 1979 and now in its third edition, Goldberg's book is now a key text for teaching performance in universities and has been translated into over seven languages, including Chinese, Croatian, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish .

Born in Durban, South Africa, Goldberg studied Political Science and Fine Arts at Wits University, Johannesburg, and Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. As director of the Royal College of Art Gallery, London, Goldberg set precedents for exhibiting modern and contemporary performance and organized exhibitions, performance series, and symposia on a broad range of multi-disciplinary artists including Marina Abramović, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Christian Boltanski, Brian Eno, the Kipper Kids, Piero Manzoni, Anthony McCall, and Christo and Jeanne Claude.

Goldberg was curator at The Kitchen, New York. Her programming included the creation of an exhibition space, a video viewing room, and performance series. While at The Kitchen, Goldberg presented works by Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Peter Gordon, Meredith Monk, and Robert Wilson and curated the first solo exhibitions of Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, David Salle, and Cindy Sherman, among others.