Photo by Martha Alf
David S. Rubin has been a prominent figure in American contemporary art for five decades.
David S. Rubin is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and artist. As a contemporary art curator, he is recognized for thematic exhibitions such as "Old Glory: The American Flag in Contemporary Art," "It's Only Rock and Roll: Rock and Roll Currents in Contemporary Art," and "Psychedelic: Optical and Visionary Art since the 1960s." Rubin has held curatorial positions at Scripps and Pomona Colleges, Santa Monica College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Albright College, MOCA Cleveland, Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and San Antonio Museum of Art. In 1996 Rubin served as the U.S. Commissioner for the Cuenca Bienal of Painting in Ecuador, and from 2001-07 he was an international juror for the Florence Biennale. He has organized solo exhibitions for many artists of note, including Martha Alf, Robert Arneson, William Baziotes, Petah Coyne, Jay DeFeo, Allen Ginsberg, Al Held, Donald Lipski, Christian Marclay, Vincent Valdez, and many others. Rubin's curatorial archives are housed in the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art. As an art critic, Rubin has written for Arts Magazine, Art in America, Visual Art Source, Artillery, Hyperallergic, and other art journals. He has published numerous books and catalogs in conjunction with exhibitions. As an artist, Rubin is known for automatic drawing. Rubin’s drawings have been exhibited at California State University Northridge Art Galleries, Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, and the Bradbury Art Museum at Arkansas State University and are in the collections of the Ogden Museum of Contemporary Art and the Bradbury Art Museum. Rubin holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MA in Art History from Harvard University.