Rate My Professor Gwen Allen

Gwen Allen is a Professor in the School of Art at San Francisco State University, where she joined the faculty in 2007. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University, which she completed in 2004 with a dissertation titled 'From Specific Medium to Mass Media: The Art Magazine in the 1960s and the 1970s.' Her academic background includes prior experience as a visiting assistant professor of art history at Maine College of Art. Allen specializes in contemporary art, criticism, and visual culture, areas that define her research interests and teaching within the Art History program. At San Francisco State University, she advises undergraduate students in Art History whose last names begin with A-K and has served as Chair for the Bachelor of Arts in Art History program. She has also represented the College of Liberal & Creative Arts on the Academic Program Assessment Committee.

Allen's scholarly contributions include her authorship of Artists' Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art (MIT Press, 2011), a comprehensive study of artists' periodicals from the 1960s to the 1980s as alternative spaces for artistic practice. She edited The Magazine, part of the Documents of Contemporary Art series (Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press, 2016), further exploring the significance of magazines in contemporary art. Her writing on art and design has been published in prominent journals and magazines such as Artforum, Bookforum, Art Journal, and East of Borneo. Previously, Allen served as Director of the School of Art at San Francisco State University. She curated the exhibition 'Conceptual Art and the Document' at Stanford University and has participated in public discussions, including a book launch event on the role of magazines in visual arts. Her work underscores the enduring impact of print media in shaping contemporary art discourse and criticism.