GABRIELLE TILLENBURG
gabrielle.tillenburg@gmail.com
EDUCATION
PhD candidate, Art History & Archaeology, University of Maryland, Expected May 2028
Dissertation (Working Title): “Island Bodies Under and Against U.S. Occupation (1985–2025)”
Graduate Certificate, Digital Studies in the Arts and Humanities, UMD, Expected May 2026
MA, Art History & Archaeology, UMD, 2022
Thesis: “Picturing Liminality: Island Bodies of Okinawa and Puerto Rico”
BFA, Film, University of Central Florida, 2013
Areas of Specialization: Art of the Americas; Contemporary Caribbean, Latinx, and Latin American Art History; Ecocritical Art History; Art History at the edges of US American Empire; Modern and Contemporary Japanese Art History
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2025 - 2026 Teaching Assistant, University of Maryland Department of Art and Archaeology, College Park, MD
2023 - 2025 Curatorial Assistant of Latinx Art, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC
2022 - 2023 Bresler Curator in Residence, VisArts, Rockville, MD
2021 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition Intern, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (Sep. - Dec.)
2021 Catto Curatorial Intern, Time Based Media Arts and Latino Art and History, National Portrait Gallery (Jun. - Aug.)
2018 - present Independent Curator, Washington, DC
2015 - 2020 Exhibitions Coordinator, Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc., Bethesda, MD
2016 On-Call Digitization Technician, Picturae, Inc., Washington, D.C.
2015 Visual Arts Assistant, Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc., Bethesda, MD
SELECTED CURATED EXHIBITIONS
Classroom Solidarities, solo exhibition of Mojdeh Rezaeipour, Herman Maril Gallery, UMD, September 3 – October 2, 2024
Sound of Fire, VisArts, Rockville, MD, January 25 – March 12, 2023
RINGGOLD | SAAR: Meeting on the Matrix, David C. Driskell Center, UMD, January 26 – May 22, 2034 (co-curated)
Re∙Cast: Sculptural Works from the Art Museum of Americas Collection, UMD Art Gallery, UMD, September 8 – December 31, 2022 (co-curated)
Rupture/Ruptura, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center (LACS), UMD, April 1 – 31, 2021
Past Process, Strathmore, Bethesda, MD, Jan. 16 – March 13, 2021
Swell Wave, Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Arts Center, Takoma Park, MD (canceled due to COVID-19)
Surfacing, Strathmore, Bethesda, MD, Feb. 23 – March 31, 2019
Summer Public Art Installation, Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, VA, July 19 – August 31, 2019
Soft Serve, Willow Street Gallery, Takoma, DC, Nov. 9 – Dec. 2, 2018
SCHOLARLY AND PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS
Articles
Tillenburg, Gabrielle. 2026. “War and Boyish Fantasy: Puerto Rican Artists Confront the Spectacle of Militarism: From Toy Soldiers to War Theaters, Boricua Artists Trace How Hypermasculine Performativity Is Driving the Archipelago’s Renewed Militarization.” NACLA Report on the Americas 58 (2): 194–202. doi:10.1080/10714839.2026.2676441.
Tillenburg, Gabrielle. “On and Under U.S. Occupation: Women Artists in Japan and Puerto Rico.” Artlines (Winter 2021): 8–11.
Catalogues
Tillenburg, Gabrielle. “Varvara Tokareva” in Maura Callahan, Katie Rabogliatti, editors. UMD MFA Catalogue 2025, UMD Art Department and Art History & Archaeology Department, 2025. Published following the exhibition 2025 Thesis Exhibitions at UMD Art Gallery, College Park.
Tillenburg, Gabrielle. “Hand: Material Influence and Material Manipulation” (Co-written with Maura Callahan) in Juarez Cruz, Marco Polo, Cléa Massiani, and Gabrielle Tillenburg, editors. Re•Cast: Sculptural Works from the Art Museum of the Americas. UMD Art Gallery, College Park, 2022.
Other
Tillenburg, Gabrielle. Re∙cast. 2022. Digital video. 11 minutes. Archival footage courtesy of the Art Museum of the Americas.
Tillenburg, Gabrielle. “Interview with Artist Eric Rivera Barbeito.” Sequitur 7, no. 2 (2021).
Denholm, Elizabeth, Ina Descartes, Allie Frazier, and Gabrielle Tillenburg. In Defense of Art (Washington DC). Zine. Single issue (2019).
PRESENTATIONS
Speaker, “Defying Borders: Feminine Hybrids and Liquid Bodies Against Empire.” Presentation for Emerging Scholars Lighting Round, Association of Historians of American Art Ninth Biennial Symposium, Brunswick, Maine, September 24-26, 2026.
Speaker, “Okinawa, Mi Amor: Subversive Strategies in Contemporary Art at the Edges of U.S. Empire.” Paper presented at Late State American Empire?, American Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 20-22, 2025.
Guest Lecturer, “Pearl Harbor and the Atomic Bomb.” Lecture presented in course ARTH261: Monuments, Monumentality, and the Art of the Memorial, taught by Prof. Tess Korobkin, UMD, November 10, 2025.
Speaker, “Military Soundscapes: Artists on Noise Pollution and Weaponized Sound.” Paper presented at Worldmaking/Worldbreaking, Association for the Study of Arts of the Present Annual Conference, San Antonio, Texas, October 22-25, 205.
Speaker, “Seeing Sovereignty in Snow, Salt, and Mold: Ecological Material and the Colonial Condition in the work of Sofía Gallisa Muriente” Paper to be presented at Sovereignty, Art and its Histories, National Committee for History of Art, College Art Association (CAA) Annual Conference, New York, February 12, 2025.
Speaker, “Portraiture and Memorialization: Kent State and Ruben Salazar.” Co-lecture, Greenberg Steinhauser Forum in American Portraiture, PORTAL, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, September 17, 2024.
Speaker, “’The Root of “Care” is Grief’: Ecological Loss in a forecast, a haunting, a crossing, a visitation.” Paper presented at Metamorphosis – Ecstasies of Matter and Image, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 30, 2024.
Speaker, “Currency: Exchanging Artist Solidarity.” Led artist talk and workshop with artist Danielle De Jesus, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC, March 21, 2024.
Speaker and participant, “Border Crossing: Island Artists Defying US Military Occupation.” Paper presented at Dissertation Proposal Development Workshop, Beyond Borders Bucerius Fellows 2023: Borders, Contestation and Conflict, Hamburg, Germany, December 1, 2023
Speaker, “Tortuous Bodies: Fukuzawa Ichiro’s Satirical View of Wartime and Postwar Japan.” Paper presented at The Global Art of War, SECAC, Richmond, VA, October 12-14, 2023.
Speaker, “Intersecting Islands: Mao Ishikawa and Beatriz Santiago Muñoz Subverting the US Imperial Gaze.” Paper presented at Intersecting Photographies: Photography Network’s 2022 Symposium, Washington, DC, October 13–15, 2022.
Speaker, “Landscape as Post–Military Cinema: Picturing Dispossession and (Re)possession." Paper presented at the Beyond Borders: Visualizing Diaspora, Displacement, and Dispossession Graduate Symposium in the History of Art & Architecture, Tufts University, Medford, MA, April 1–2, 2022.
Speaker, “Picturing Liminality: Island Bodies Under and Against U.S. Imperialism." Paper presented at the Witness|Recover|Persist: Practicing Survival in Global Art History Graduate Student Art History Symposium, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, February 25–26, 2022.
Speaker, “Picturing Liminality: Island Bodies Under and Against U.S. Imperialism." Paper presented at the Roger Rearick Forum, Department of Art History & Archaeology, UMD, College Park, MD, October 21, 2021.
Panel Chair, “Rupture/Ruptura: Artist Panel,” Panel chaired at Disruption: Destructive and Generative Ruptures in Latin America and the Caribbean,14th LACS Annual Student Conference, UMD, College Park, MD, April 29–20, 2021
FELLOWSHIPS/AWARDS
Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship in American Art, 2026 - 2027
Big 10 Academic Alliance/Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2026 - 2027
Dorsey Prize for Curatorial Practice, 2024
Bucerius Start Up Scholarship Beyond Borders Bucerius Fellow, Zeit-Stiftung, 2023 - 2024
Smith Family Award, Department of Art History & Archeology, UMD, 2023 - 2025
Fleur Bresler Curator–in–Residence, VisArts, 2023
Summer Research Travel Grant, Department of Art History & Archeology, UMD, 2022
Pop–Up Research Grant, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center, UMD, 2022
Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award, UMD, 2022
Zoomed–In Teaching Award, College Park Scholars, UMD, 2021
Ethics and Labor in Art History Selected Participant, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 2021
Faith Flanagan Fellowship, ArtTable DC, 2018 - 2019