About Elana Mann

Elana Mann is an artist who explores the power of the collective voice and the politics of listening through sculpture, sound, and community engagement. 

Mann has presented her work in museums, galleries, and public spaces in the U.S. and globally. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at 18th Street Art Center (Santa Monica, CA), Lawndale Art Center (Houston, TX), Artpace (San Antonio, TX), Pitzer College Art Galleries (Claremont, CA), and Commonwealth & Council (LA, CA). Mann has participated in group exhibitions and screenings at the Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, the Orange County Museum of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum. She has been commissioned to create public projects by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Montalvo Art Center and the Getty Villa.

Mann co-edited, with John Burtle, "Propositional Attitudes: What do we do now?," (2018) published by Golden Spike Press, followed by a book/performance tour at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.

Mann has received numerous awards, including an International Artist-In-Residence at Artpace San Antonio, the California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship, the Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award, the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship, and she was the inaugural artist-in-residence at Pitzer College's ceramics department.

Mann received her B.F.A. with honors from Washington University in St. Louis, and her M.F.A from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA. She lives in Southern California with her husband, designer Jean-Paul Leonard, and their two kids.

(photo: Josh Caffrey)

Curriculum Vitae

Selected Solo and Two Person Exhibitions

2024

  • What can listening do? (Part 2), Sam Francis Gallery, Crossroads School of Arts & Sciences, Santa Monica, CA (forthcoming)

2023

  • WORD. (two person show with James Griffith), Irenic Proects, Altadena, CA

2021

  • Year of Wonders, redux, 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA

2020

  • Year of Wonders, Artpace, San Antonio, TX
  • Sounds from the Swamp, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX 

2018

  • Instruments of accountability, Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA 

2016

  • The Assonant Armory, Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles, CA

2014

  • Drone Duet, a collaboration with Matias Viegener, Digital Mural Project at the Culver Center of the Arts, UCR ARTSblock, Riverside, CA

2013

  • 3 Solo Projects: Audrey Chan, Elana Mann, and Chan & Mann, Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA
  • Listening as (a) movement, sculptural installation, series of events, and community organizing, Side Street Projects, Pasadena, CA
  • Meet the Chans and Manns, 323 Projects, Los Angeles, CA (Chan & Mann)

Public Projects/Commissions

2023

  • Permanent installation for the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office, Hall of Records, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, CA (forthcoming) 

2021

  • One day I will make a mace, but for now I have a mouth, Art Journal Open

2019

  • Dark Victory, LACI AIR + CicLAvia, Los Angeles, CA

2017

  • Take a Stand Marching Band, Los Angeles, CA

2016

  • Talk through the hand, mural on the exterior of Baik Art, Los Angeles, CA

2014   

  • All Ears, Mellon Arts Initiative, Pomona College, Claremont, CA
  • Grand Rounds, Grand Park in Downtown Los Angeles commissioned by Machine Project and the Music Center

2009   

  • Retirement Bash, with Culver City High School Students, commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Selected Group Exhibitions

2023

  • How We Gather, Madeville Gallery, University of California, San Diego, San Deigo, CA
  • The Feminist Art Program (1970-1975): Cycles of Collectivity, REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA
  • Micrologies IV, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
  • Matrilineage: The Knowledge We Carry, Studio 203, Los Angeles, CA
  • We can do it!, Kitasenju Buoy, Tokyo, Japan

2022

  • SOUNDS, El Camino College Art Gallery, Torrance, CA 
  • Micrologies III, Irenic Projects, Altandena, CA
  • Unprotected, Epoch Gallery
  • PORTALS, Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro, CA

2021

  • Song of the Cicada, Honor Fraser gallery, Los Angeles, CA
  • Domestic Ritual, Baik + Khneysser, Little City Farm LA, Los Angeles, CA

2020

  • (Dis)Location, Royale Projects, Los Angeles, CA
  • Hindsight is 2020: Dispatches from the edge of an apocalypse, Cerritos College, Norwalk, CA

2019

  • The School for Endurance Work, California State University, Los Angeles, CA 
  • ​The Pedagogical Impulse, The University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  • Tokyo Independent 2019, Tokyo University of the Arts, Chinretsukan Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (in collaboration with Tomorrow Girls Troop)

2018

  • The Incongruous Body, American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA 
  • This is awkward, ESMoA, El Segundo, CA (Chan & Mann)
  • ANNEX, M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
  • Manifesto: A Moderate Proposal, Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA

2017

  • My City hurts me and I am hurting my Cty, The English Hospital, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
  • Black Mirror, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
  • CHARIVARIA, CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain
  • DIS…MISS, Cypress City College, Cypress, CA (Chan & Mann)

2016

  • Ontology of Influence: Ron Leax and Alumni Exhibition, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO
  • Gildless Age, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA

2015

  • Laugh-in: Art, Comedy, Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (Chan & Mann)
  • Wunderkammer, Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA

2014

  • Writing Sound 2, Lydgalleriet, Bergen, Norway
  • Faculty Exhibition, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College, Claremont, CA
  • After Noise, Thomas Solomon Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
  • Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art, with Chan & Mann, LuXun Academy, Shenyang, China (Chan & Mann)
  • Beaver, The Center for Performance Research, Brooklyn, NY (Chan & Mann)

2013

  • Resonant Bodies: Landscapes of Acoustic Tension, ICI Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • Baker's Dozen V, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
  • The Hollow Center, Smak Mellon, Brooklyn, NY
  • Teach-In, Cypress College, Cypress, CA

Selected performances and screenings

2023

  • Lifelines, in collaboration with AF3IRM, She Loves Collective, Tomorrow Girls Troop, and Ni Santas, part of Heal Hear Here, Freewaves, Los Angeles State Historic Park, Los Angeles, CA
  • Hope is a Hammer, a collaboration with Sharon Chohi Kim, Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA

2021

  • Hungry Ears: Pitzer Choir, This is not a reading / Ceci n'est pas une lecture: Remixes & Conversations from There is no soundtrack, Pitzer College, Claremont, CA

2019

  • Muscle Beach Cookbook, CURRENT: LA, curated by Human Resources, Venice Beach Recreational Facility, Venice, CA

2018

  • Ain't I A Womxn? A Gender's Promenade, Los Angeles State Historic Park, Los Angeles, CA
  • The Grand Buddha Marching Band, AxS Festival, Fulcrum Arts, CA

2017

  • Now Hear This! An Exercise in Listening, Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA

2014

  • Villa Murmurs, the Getty Villa, Los Angeles, CA
  • Transmission, Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, CA and Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA

2013

  • One, Two, Three, South of Sunset, Los Angeles, CA

Selected Awards/Grants/Residencies

2024

  • Artist in Residence, Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences

2023

  • Community Engagement Grant
  • Artist's Retreat, St. Andrew's Abbey, funded by Irenic Projects

2022

  • Cali Catalyst Award, The Center for Cultural Innovation
  • Ruth and Howard Chenven Foundation Grant

2021

  • Sustainable Arts Foundation Award
  • Future Art Award

2020

  • International Artist-in-Residence, Artpace San Antonio
  • City of Los Angeles (COLA) Individual Artist Fellowship

2019

  • The Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award
  • Artist-in-Residence at the Los Angeles Clean-Tech Incubator (AIR LACI)

2017-18

  • Ceramics Artist-In-Resident, Pitzer College
  • Cultural Trailblazer, City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs

2017

  • Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant

2015

  • Artist Community Engagement (ACE) Grant, Rema Hort Mann Foundation

2013

  • Artist in Residence, Amy Marie Sears Memorial Visiting Artist Series, St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN
  • Durfee Foundation Artist's Resource for Completion (ARC) Grant (for Chan & Mann)

2012

  • Durfee Foundation Artist's Resource for Completion (ARC) Grant 

2010

  • Philadelphia Art Hotel residency, Philadelphia, PA

2009

  • California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship for Emerging Artists
  • Kitty Chester Series of Curator’s Laboratory Projects, Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA

Curatorial projects

2023

  • What can listening do? (Part 1), Sam Francis Gallery, Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, Santa Monica, CA

2018

  • Propositional Attitudes: Election Extravaganza, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA
  • Perfect Worlds/Propositional Attitudes, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
  • Propositional worlds, SITE/less, Chicago, IL

2017

  • Artists for Racial Justice, Baik Art, Los Angeles, CA

2015

  • Race Art & Survival - Michelada Think Tank & Chats About Change, organized with Robby Herbst, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA
  • Chats about Change: Critical Conversations on Art and Politics, organized with Robby Herbst, California State University and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA

2012

  • Shares and Stakeholders: The Feminist Art Project day of panels at the College Art Association, organized with Audrey Chan, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

2009

  • Performing Economies, Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA

2007

  • Exquisite Acts and Everyday Rebellions: 2007 CalArts Feminist Art Symposium  and  Exhibition, in partnership with the “WACK!” exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
  • TROCA:USA, A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil<

2005

  • TROCA: Brasil, The Feldman Gallery + Project Space, The Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR

Selected Writing and Publications

2023

  • "Ten tips for young women artists," commissioned by REDCAT for the exhibition The Feminist Art Program (1970-1975): Cycles of Collectivity, Los Angeles, CA

2021

  • “Robby Herbst: On Art, Kinship and Compassion,” The Edge of Equilibrium, edited by Camilla Boemio, Vanillaedizioni

2018

  • Propositional Attitudes: What do we do now? co-edited with John Burtle, Golden Spike Press, Risograph print, 122 pages, edition of 250

2017

  • Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal, No. 15, “Revolution,” (Featured Artist, pg. 1, 58, 99)

2015

  • “My Tribe: An interview with Senga Nengudi,” co-written with Vera Brunner-Sung, and “Between Radical Art and Critical Pedagogy, with Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz,” In the Canyon, Revise the Canon, edited by Geraldine Gourbe, Shelter Press: Switzerland

2014

  • “Searching for Murmurs of History,” The Getty Iris, June 21, 2014>

2013

  • “Rupture and Continuity in Feminist Re-performance,” co-written with Audrey Chan and Alexandra Grant, Afterall Journal, Issue 33, Summer 2013

2012

  • "Radical Receptivities," co-authored with Juliana Snapper, Art 21 Blog, January 4

Public Collections

  • Getty Research Institute
  • Cerritos College
  • Los Angeles Contemporary Archives
  • Center for Political Graphics
  • London College of Communication

Selected Bibliography

  • Diss...Miss Gender? Edited by Anne Bray, MIT Press, 2003
  • We Can Do It!, Tomorrow Girls Troop, Art Diver, Japan, 2023
  • DIMENSIONS: Digital Art Since 1859, Pittlerwerke, Leipzig, Germany, 2023
  • Going out. Walking, Listening, Soundmaking, author and editor Elena Biserna, coeditors: Caroline Profanter, Henry Andersen, Julia Eckhardt, umland editions, Brussels, 2022
  • Biserna, Elena, "Ambulatory Sound-Making. Re-writing, Re-appropriating, 'Presencing' Auditory Spaces," Michael Bull, Marcel Cobussen, eds., The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sonic Methodologies, New-York: Bloomsbury, 2021
  • G. Douglas Barrett, “Wonder in the Wake of Crisis: Elana Mann’s Year of Wonders, redux,” 18th Street Arts Center 2020-21 catalog
  • Ma, Ming-Yuen S., There is no Soundtrack: Rethinking art, media, and the audio-visual contract, Manchester University Press, 2020
  • Fischbeck, Luke, “Elana Mann: Meet me in the vortex,” 2020 COLA Catalog, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
  • Fryd, Vivien Green, Against Our Will: Sexual Trauma in Art Since 1970, Penn State Univerity Press, 2019
  • Sholette, Gregory and Kopenkina, Olga, “Live Listening: Searching for a Signal with Elana Mann" exhibition catalog essay for Elana Mann: Instruments of Accountability, Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA, 2018
  • “Artist Bailout: Renegade Bounty Exchange,” Guidebook of Alternative Nows, edited by Amber Hickey, the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, 2012
  • Cornell, Lauren, Gioni, Massimiliano and Hoptman, Laura, Younger than Jesus: Artist Directory, New Museum and Phaidon Press, April 2009
  • Tsatsos, Irene, “Elana Mann,” 2009 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists Catalog 

Selected Press

  • “Conversations with Elana Mann,” Voyage LA, December 26, 2022
  • Paris, Melina “Elana Mann: An Artists’ Soundtrack of Activism,” Angel City Culture Quest, podcast October 30, 2022
  • Ziv, Stav, “Can this noisemaker rattle the world out of its complacency?”, The Forward, October 11, 2022
  • Williams, Janaya and Preston Zappas, Lindsay, “’Unprotected’: New digital art show funds reproductive rights," KCRW Greater LA, August 31, 2022  
  • Reizman, Renee, “Let’s make noise for abortion rights,” Hyperallergic, June 24, 2022
  • Zellen, Jody, “Elana Mann, 18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus),” Artillery Magazine, July 6, 2021
  • Cross, Lauren, “The Sound(s) of Unrest: A Glimpse of Protest in Elana Mann’s Year of Wonders,” Artpace San Antonio, 2021
  • Courtney, James, “Artpace fall 2020 international residents ‘respond to the moment’ with new exhibits,” San Antonio Report, November 18, 2020
  • Ollman, Leah, "Humor and human clay meld in 'The Incongruous Body' at AMOCA," Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2018
  • Mizota, Sharon, “What to see in LA Galleries..." Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2016
  • Harren, Natilee, “Elana Mann: 500 words,” Artforum.com, October 11, 2016
  • Owen Driggs, Janet, “Chats About Change: Changing the Terms of Engagement,” KCET Artbound, February 5, 2015
  • Williams, Maxwell, “Chats About Change: The Intersection of Art and Activism,” KCET Artbound, January 14, 2015
  • Archer, Nicole, "Security blankets: uniforms, hoods, and the textures of terror, Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, Vol. 24, Issl 2-3, 2014
  • Moss, Avigail, “3 Solo Projects: Audrey Chan, Elana Mann and Chan & Mann,” exhibition brochure, Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Summer 2013
  • Gardocki, Matthew and Moore, Catlin, “"Emergent Presence: 8 L.A. Artists You Should Know," Fabrik Magazine, Issue 21
  • Yank, Sue Bell, “In the Space Between Bodies: Women Artists and Occupy LA,” n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal (London), vol. 32 (July 2013), Citizenship, pp.23-31
  • Jao, Carren, “Elana Mann Tunes noise out to let the signal in,” KCET Artbound, April 4, 2013
  • Colbert, Maile, “Radical Listening and the People’s Microphony: A conversation with Elana Mann,” Sounding out!, March 11, 2013
  • Wagley, Catherine, “Occupy Used a ‘People’s Microphone’ to Spread Info Through a Crowd. Now There’s a People’s Mic Choir,” LA Weekly, Sep. 17, 2012

Education

2007

  • California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA, MFA in Art

2003

  • Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, BFA in sculpture, Suma Cum Laude

Teaching Experience

2023

  • Visiting Artist, Pacific Northwest College of Art/Wilammette University, Portland, OR

2019

  • Visiting Artist, Vermont College of Fine Arts, VT

2017

  • Otis College of Art and Design, thesis mentor, MFA Public Practice program

2008-16

  • Scripps College, Visiting Lecturer, thesis mentor for senior art majors

2015, 13

  • Pitzer College, Visiting Lecturer

2013

  • University of San Diego, Visiting Lecturer

2012, 10

  • San Francisco Art Institute, thesis mentor

2009, 07

  • Art Institute of California-Los Angeles, Visiting Lecturer

2008

  • Cal Arts, Visiting Faculty