Conor Moynihan is a writer, aspiring curator, and art historian and recently received his BA in Art History from Columbia College Chicago.  Queer and LGBT issues, identity and post-identity politics, religion and language are interests of his and he is especially concerned with how these intersect and unfold within contemporary art practices. Recently, Conor has explored his interest in Islam, Orientalism, and art through his research work on the artist Mehdi-Georges Lahlou.  Conor is the Curatorial Assistant for Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival 2014, which is hosted in June by Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery, and an assistant to artist and educator Joan Giroux.

Conor is specifically interested in art of the 1980s, activist art, performance art, interactivity and queer art.  His senior thesis focused on the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres and how it responded to the homophobic political climate of the 1980s and 90s within the gallery context.  From there, his thoughts and ideas have progressed and evolved into an ambition to historicize queer art and thought, both visual and non-visual.  Currently, he is pondering the continuities and ruptures in queer art-making between generations and how AIDS has impacted creative practices.  He is especially interested in the tensions between the linear and nonlinear connections that link generations of queer thinkers, artists, and activists and how these manifest visually.