Tiffany Barber

Clark Fellow

Fall 2026-2027

Tiffany E. Barber is assistant professor of African American art at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a scholar, curator, and critic whose work blends art history, performance theory, and Black feminist thought, and reshapes how we understand race, gender, and representation. Her commentary on contemporary art, culture, and fashion spans academic journals, museum exhibitions, documentaries, and media outlets, including The Nation, Huffington Post, Frieze, and Tate Etc. Her accolades include the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Director’s Essay Prize; leadership roles at the International Journal of Surrealism, the Delaware Contemporary, the College Board, and the Black Speculative Arts Movement; and numerous fellowships. Her exhibitions have been featured in Essence, The Brooklyn Rail, Surface Magazine, and Google Arts and Culture. Her debut monograph, Undesirability and Her Sisters: Black Women’s Visual Work and the Ethics of Representation (NYU Press), was published in 2025. At the Clark, Barber will work on her book project W.E.B. Du Bois for Art Historians, which excavates the famed sociologist’s impact on modern and contemporary art by charting the past, present, and future legacy of his radical turns to art history and exhibition making as methods for visualizing Pan-African progress and justice.