Marie Shurkus is a Los Angeles based contemporary art theorist. Her research and teaching interests focus on the intersection of contemporary art and philosophy; she is particularly interested in issues of representation, subjectivity, and perception. She has just completed a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in contemporary art theory at Pomona College, Claremont CA. In addition, Marie has taught contemporary art history and theory at the University of Arizona, Johnson State College, and Montreal’s Concordia University, where she completed her doctorate. Her dissertation dealt with the history of appropriation art in the late seventies and early eighties, and her most recent research is exploring new media and recent performative models of art practice, such as reenactment. She has recently published “Appropriated Imagery, Material Affects and Narrative Outcomes,” which appeared in the anthology Telling Stories: Countering Narrative in Art, Theory and Film, published in 2009. She has also written “Lawrence Joseph Steger: Queer Representations” to be published in a catalogue about Steger’s performance work later this year. Currently, she is working on a major catalogue essay for the “69-73: Art At Pomona College” exhibition that is being organized in conjunction with the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: Art In LA 1945-1980 project. In addition, Marie has served as the director of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Visiting Artists Program from 1990-95 and also curated exhibitions at the alternative artist-run space Randolph Street Gallery. She has worked in museum education at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and been the executive director of The Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago.