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Education
PhD, University of Iowa
MA, University of Georgia
BA, Vanderbilt University
About Me
Kathryn Floyd’s scholarship focuses on the history of exhibitions with a special interest in the remediation and representation of exhibitions in photographs, films, exhibition catalogues, and other media. Beginning with her dissertation, “Between Change and Continuity: documenta 1955-2005,” which was awarded a University of Iowa Graduate Deans' Distinguished Dissertation Prize, she has conducted extensive research on postwar German art and the history of documenta, an on-going exhibition series founded in 1955 in Kassel, Germany. Before coming to Auburn in 2008, Dr. Floyd worked at the International Dada Archive at the University of Iowa Libraries, and she continues to write about Dada and surrealist art and exhibitions and the postwar reception of Dada in the United States and Germany.
Dr. Floyd teaches courses in modern and contemporary art, as well as in the history of the arts of Africa and the history of photography. Recent seminar topics include “The History of Art Exhibitions,” “Dada and Surrealism” and “Contemporary African Art and Design.” Her teaching and mentoring have been recognized with a College of Liberal Arts Teaching Excellence Award (2017), a College of Liberal Arts Advising Award (2019), the Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring (2019), and the Gerald and Emily Leischuck Endowed Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching (2024), one of Auburn’s highest faculty awards for teaching.
Research Interests
history of exhibitions, 20th-century Germany, modern and contemporary art, history of photography, African art
Publications
“Primary Structures Reprinted: The Facsimile Catalogue from Scholarly Source to Exhibitionary Object.” In L’exposition à l’ouvrage: Histoire, formes et enjeux du catalogue d’exposition. Edited by Marie Gispert, et al., 217-234. Paris: HiCSA Editions, 2025.
With Brett M. Van Hoesen. “Dada Countercultural Practices at the University of Iowa.” In Music, the Avant-Garde, and Counterculture: Invisible Republics. Edited by Anabela Duarte, 113-126. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
“Other Primary Structures and the Theatricality of Re-Staged Exhibitions.” In Reconstructing Exhibitions in Art Institutions, edited by Michaela Giebelhausen and Natasha Adamou, 29-47. Routledge, 2023.
“Dada Unshelved: Dada Publications from Library to Museum, 1936-1978,” Dada/Surrealism 23 (spring 2020): 1-20.
“Exhibition Views: Toward a Typology of the Installation Shot.” Revista de História da Arte 14 (2019): 93-109.
“Georges Adéagbo in Venice: Artist, Curator, Philosopher, Friend.” PRŌTOCOLLUM 6 (2019): 209- 212.
“documenta: die Einführung.” In Bauhaus / documenta: Vision und Marke, eds. Birgit Jooss, Philipp Oswalt, and Daniel Tyradellis, 123-126. Leipzig: Spector Books, 2019.
"Writing the Histories of Dada and Surrealist Exhibitions: Problems and Possibilities." Dada/Surrealism 21 (2017): 1-19.
Guest editor of “Exhibiting Dada and Surrealism,” Dada/Surrealism 21 (2017). Special issue on the history of Dada and Surrealist exhibitions and display practices.
“d is for documenta: institutional identity for a periodic exhibition” On Curating (special issue on documenta, ed. Nanne Buurman and Dorothee Richter) 33 (June 2017): 9-19.
“The Museum Exhibited: documenta and the Fridericianum.” In Images of the Art Museum: Connecting Gaze and Discourse in the History of Museology, eds. M. Savino and E. Troelenberg, 65-90. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017.
“Moving Statues: Arthur Grimm, the “Entartete Kunst” Exhibition, and Installation Photography as Standfotografie.” In Exhibiting the German Past: Museums, Film, and Musealization, eds. Peter McIsaac and Gabriele Mueller, 187-208. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015.
“Georges Adéagbo: Between Artwork and Exhibition.” In Exhibiting Outside the Academy, Salon, and Biennial, 1775-1999, ed. Andrew Graciano, 235-258. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate Press, 2015.
“Future Objects / Object Futures: Object Oriented Ontology at dOCUMENTA (13) and Beyond,” Seismopolite: Journal of Art and Politics (special issue on “The Future of the Biennial,” ed. Paal Andreas Bøe) 6 (February 2014).
“Simulated Journeys: Travels through the Documenta Photo Albums.” In The Photograph and the Album: Histories, Practices, Futures, eds. Jonathan Carson, Rosie Miller, and Theresa Wilkie, 276-317. Edinburgh and Cambridge, Mass.: MuseumsEtc. 2013.