Temple University

Erin Riley-Lopez’s specialty is in contemporary art with research interests in queer, trans, and feminist theories, exhibition histories, institutional critique, and performance art. She is currently working on her dissertation which explores contemporary queer exhibitions through the lens of utopian futurity. From 2022 to 2023, Riley-Lopez was an advanced graduate student fellow at the Center for Humanities at Temple (CHAT). And from 2017 to 2021 she was a Future Faculty Fellow at Temple.  

Prior to pursuing a PhD, Riley-Lopez was the Curator of the Freedman Gallery at Albright College in Reading, PA, from 2012 through 2017, where she also taught courses in art history and arts administration and served on the Design Oversight Committee. From 2005 through 2009 she was an associate curator at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, where she organized collection-based and annual Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) exhibitions and also oversaw the AIM Program and coordinated the International Residency Program.  

Her independently curated exhibitions have appeared at A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; the Bronx River Art Center, NY; Cuchifritos, New York; The Center for Worker Education, CUNY, New York; and The Center for Book Arts, New York. Riley-Lopez’s catalogue essays, articles, and reviews have appeared both online and in print for the Freedman Gallery, Albright College; The Center for Book Arts; A.I.R. Gallery; Bronx River Art Center; KCLOG blog; …might be good; The Joan Mitchell Foundation; PowerHouse Projects; ART21 blog; Bootprint, and The Bronx Museum of the Arts.  

MA, Curatorial Studies, the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), 2005 
BA, Liberal Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, 2002 

Dissertation Title: Queering the Museum: Utopian Futurity in Contemporary Exhibitions 

Primary Advisor: Mariola Alvarez, PhD