Giuliana Bruno
Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and GSD Faculty Affiliate
Professor Bruno is internationally known for her research on the intersections of the visual arts, architecture, the environment, and media.
She has published seven award-winning books and two hundred essays, translated in over fifteen languages. Her latest book, Atmospheres of Projection: Environmentality in Art and Screen Media (University of Chicago Press, 2022), considers the interrelations of projection, atmosphere, and environment, binding art to the ecology of ambiance. Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality, and Media (University of Chicago Press, 2014) has been widely reviewed and praised for revisiting the concept of materiality in contemporary art. Her seminal work Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film (Verso, 2002) won the 2003 Kraszna-Krausz Book Award in Culture and History – a prize awarded to “the world’s best book on the moving image” – and has provided new directions for visual studies. Atlas was also honored as Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association, and named a Book of the Year in 2003 by the Guardian. Her book Public Intimacy: Architecture and the Visual Arts (MIT Press, 2007) has been translated in Europe and Asia. For Streetwalking on a Ruined Map (Princeton University Press, 1993), a journey through modernity and cultural memory, she won the Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual award for best book in film studies. Off Screen (Routledge, 1988) was devoted to women and film, and Immagini allo schermo (Rosenberg & Sellier, 1991) was named one of the 50 Best Books of the First 100 Years of Film History.
Professor Bruno has contributed to numerous monographs on contemporary art, including Wael Shawky (Xavier Barral, forthcoming 2025); Isaac Julien for The Museum of Modern Art, 2014; Jesper Just for the Venice Biennale 2013 (and MAC/VAL, 2012); Jane and Louise Wilson (2004), Chantal Akerman (MHKA, 2012); Diana Thater (LACMA, 2015); Rosa Barba (Hatje Cantz, 2017); and Tara Donovan (MCA, 2018). She has written for the Whitney Museum’s show Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905-2017 as well as exhibition catalogues of the Museo Reina Sofia and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Her recently co-authored book Isaac Julien. Lina Bo Bardi–A Marvellous Entanglement (Yale University Press, forthcoming 2025) is part of her frequent writings on visual art, architecture, and the environment. She has written for international books such as Automatic Cities: The Architectural Imaginary in Contemporary Art (MCASD, 2009), Space (MAXXI Museum for 21st Century Arts, Rome, 2010), and Ruins (MIT Press/Whitechapel Gallery, 2011).
In 2017, Italy’s Capodimonte Museum gave Professor Bruno “carte blanche” to curate an exhibition from its vast collection. “Carta Bianca: Imaginaire,” on view for a year, is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue.
She lectures at universities and museums internationally, including, recently, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Dia Center for the Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou and the Louvre Museum.
Her many honors include a Fulbright and a Ph.D. honoris causa, awarded by the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts. She serves on the Steering Committee of Fondazione Prada, and has been the Louis Kahn Scholar in Residence in the History of Art at the American Academy in Rome.
Professor Bruno is featured in Visual Culture Studies: Interviews with Key Thinkers (Sage, 2008) as one of the most influential intellectuals working today in visual studies.