Anuradha Vikram

Anuradha Vikram is an art critic, curator, author, and lecturer based in Los Angeles, California. She is the artistic director of 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, and a senior lecturer at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles. She has contributed to numerous publications, and has a published book called Decolonizing Culture: Essays on the Intersection of Art and Politics.

Early life and education Growing up in Westchester County, New York, Anuradha Vikram began being involved in making art during high school. In 1997 she completed a B.S. Studio Art, minor in Art History, at New York University. She went on in 1999 until 2002, to manage the studios for artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. She moved to California, working at Nikolas Weinstein's glass studio in the San Francisco Bay Area. Vikram has worked at the Richmond Art Center in Richmond, California, as well as the UC Berkeley Art Department.

Career In 2012, she curated Spaces of Life: The Art of Sonya Rapoport which focused on Rapoport's interactive work from 1979-2011 at Mills College Art Museum. Later in 2013 Vikram curated at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. She also curated the show Uncommon Terrain for Shulamit Nazarian Gallery in 2015. She has organized over fifty exhibitions over the last decade.

In 2017, she published her first book Decolonizing Culture with Art Practical and Sming Sming Books. Decolonizing Culture book focuses on the intersection of art and politics in contemporary art.

Vikram actively contributes to critical art magazines, such as Hyperallergic, Art Practical and the San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) blog.

Notable concepts A notable concept of Vikram's curatorial practice is creating connections between people. She works to extend beyond artwork that is solely in dialogue with European/American standards of what art is. She aims to find the intersection between the contemporary art world and politics, writing to acknowledge the imbalance in treatment in the art world between artists of color and white artists. Through her work, Vikram shows that while contemporary art has been a space for strong social justice outlooks, it does not quite get to a non-imperialist approach to curating work. In interviews she has spoken about sexism in art through a discussion of Carolee Schneeman.

Some of her other recent publications include "'Naked in the Sight of the Object': Masking, Masquerade, and Black Identity" (X-TRA, vol. 18 no. 4, Summer 2016), "Becoming Human: Nam June Paik's Futuristic Compassion" (X-TRA, vol. 18 no. 1, Fall 2015), "A Brief and Incomplete History of Art and Technology Ventures in the Bay Area 1980-2010" (Afterimage, vol. 41, no. 6, Summer 2014), and "Sonya Rapoport: A Woman's Place is in the Studio" (Sonya Rapoport: Pairings of Polarities. Terri Cohn, Ed. Berkeley: Heyday, 2012). July 29–August 28, 2015 Shulamit Nazarian, Venice, California Explores place and how histories are transcended through personal experience and embodiment. January 26–May 5, 2013 Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, California Explores the influence of craft and fabric on the artist, and how it has influenced global commerce, power, and labor. January 18–March 11, 2012 Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, California Surveys 35 years of Sonya Rapport's art. Rapport is a conceptual artist who uses her artwork to better understand herself and create connections between others. September 28–October 22 Worth Ryder Art Gallery, University of California, Berkeley, California Responses to being marginalized in a globally-connected world. February 16–March 5, 2011 Worth Ryder Art Gallery, University of California, Berkeley, California "Explores the conflict between where we live out our lives by necessity and where we are located politically." September 15–October 9, 2010 Worth Ryder Art Gallery, University of California, Berkeley, California Explores how scientists and artists share their knowledge. October 7–31, 2009 Worth Ryder Art Gallery, University of California, Berkeley, California Explores the difficulties of balancing public and private life. May 1–24, 2008 SomArts Gallery, San Francisco, California Explores a different perspective on the Middle East and promoting more diverse artwork by artists from this region.