Michelle Grabner

Crown Family Professor, Painting and Drawing

michellegrabner.com

Michelle Grabner has been teaching at SAIC since 1996. She took her sabbatical during the AY2024–25.

Michelle Grabner is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and a National Academician in the National Academy of Design. She is an artist, curator and critic who contributes regularly to Artforum. With her husband artist Brad Killam, she directs the artist-run exhibition spaces and residency: The Suburban (est. 1999) and The Poor Farm (est. 2008). Grabner co-curated the 2014 Whitney Biennial, and the 2016 Portland Biennial. She was the Artistic Director for the inaugural 2018 exhibition, FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. In 2021 Grabner and Theaster Gates co-curated the 5th edition of Sculpture Milwaukee titled there is this We. She is currently curating an exhibition on painting for the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Education

MFA, 1990, Northwestern University, IL
MA, 1987, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
BFA, 1984, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Notable Classes Taught:

Graduate Critique Seminar

More info:

Artist Michelle Grabner on the Duality of Her New Work: ‘Morandi Meets the Janitor’s Closet’
Michelle Grabner at James Cohan | 48 Walker St
Michelle Grabner: Elevating the familiar

Sabbatical Reflection

During my 2024–2025 sabbatical, I worked within Kohler Company’s pottery division, an industrial ceramics facility. The scale of operations—marked by continuous production and an abundant supply of ceramic slip—enabled both material experimentation and the realization of a major corporate commission. Immersed in the rhythmic discipline of factory processes, I engaged a scale and infrastructure wholly unattainable in a conventional studio setting. This residency not only expanded the physical possibilities of my practice but also recontextualized my relationship to labor, repetition, and materiality.