Megan Metcalf, Assistant Professor
Art History
Contact Info
575-646-7973
Watch:
An interview with Autumn Knight (January 2025)
Ownership and Ontology of Internet Dance research group, Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University (UK)
Read:
"Becoming Simone Forti: California, 1970-72"
Getty Research Journal 21 (2026), Open Access
Biography
Megan Metcalf is a contemporary art historian and an expert on collecting and exhibiting ephemeral forms including dance, performance, installation, and other time-based media. Her scholarship is informed by her work in museums as well as with major figures in American dance, including Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer. Her first monograph, Collecting Choreography: Simone Forti and Performance in the Contemporary Art Museum, will be published by University of California (UC) Press in January 2027.
Dr. Metcalf’s research and writing have also appeared in Getty Research Journal, PAJ: A Journal of Art and Performance, and Artforum as well as volumes published by Routledge and the Bard Graduate Center. She has received grants from the New York Public Library, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the Getty Foundation in addition to NMSU’s Arts & Humanities Seed Grant and travel awards from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Metcalf received her PhD in contemporary art history in 2018 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and taught at ArtCenter College of Art and Design (Pasadena, CA), Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles), and UCLA before joining NMSU’s Department of Art in 2023. She was a fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2021-2023.
Selected courses: Contemporary Art Survey I: 1950s-70s, Contemporary Art Survey II: 1980s-00s, Global Contemporary Art, Museum & Curatorial Studies, Art + Property (seminar), Performance in Museums (seminar), Art + Activism (seminar).