Faculty
Chris Balaschak
Kenan Distinguished Professor of Art History, Department Chair Visual Arts
Professional Profile
Professor Chris Balaschak specializes in the histories of photography, modern and contemporary art, and visual culture. His research is focused on visual culture at the intersection of place-based politics, environmentalism, and high modernist social planning.
Dr. Balaschak’s current research project considers how American photographers responded to the environmental consequences of federal infrastructure throughout the 20th century.
Teaching
Education:
- Ph.D., University of California, Irvine
- M.F.A., Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
- B.A., New York University, New York
Area of Research:
- History of Photography
- American Visual Culture
- Modern and Contemporary Art
- Environmental Humanities
Courses Taught:
- Art History II: Renaissance - Modernism
- Art History III: Contemporary Art
- Visual Culture
- The Environmental Image
- Modern Metropolis
- Art & Environment
- Race & Visual Culture
- Art History Internship
- European Modernism
- History of Photography
- Gallery Management
Previously taught at:
- California State University, Long Beach
- University of California, Irvine
Research
- View Dr. Balaschak's book, "The Image of Environmental Harm in American Social Documentary Photography." (New York: Routledge, 2021)
- “Forest Formats: Photography, Puerto Rico, and The Caribbean Forester”
Imperial Islands: Art, Architecture, and Visual Experience in the U.S. Insular Empire after 1898 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2021) - “File System Access: Evidence and the post-industrial Bay Area” presented at the International of Word and Image Studies Triennial Conference, “Images and Texts Reproduced,” University of Lausanne, Switzerland, 2017
- “Proving Grounds: Artists’ Books in the Wake of Three Mile Island,” chapter of "Conflict, Identity, and Protest in American Art." (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016). Learn about the book.
- “The Slavic Court: Lewis Hine and Informal Urbanism in Homestead,” chapter in Paper Cities: Urban Portraits in Photographic Books (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2016). Learn about the book.
- “Getting Oriented: Death of a Valley and Horizontal Photographs in Aperture” presented at the “Photography in Print” Conference at the Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Read about the conference.
- Read Dr. Balaschak's article, "Planet of the Apes: John Szarkowski, My Lai, and The Animals,” in Art Journal (Fall 2012)
- “New Worlds: Lewis Baltz and a Geography of Aesthetic Decisions” in the book " Reconsidering the New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California" by Lewis Baltz, 1974 (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011). Learn about the book.
- Read Dr. Balaschak's article "Between Sequence and Seriality: Landscape photography and its historiography in Anonyme Skulpturen,” in Photographies, v. 3, n. 1 (2010)
- "Words without Pictures," contributor, (Los Angeles: LACMA, 2009). Learn about the book.
- "Hammer Projects: Shirana Shahbazi." (Los Angeles: Hammer Museum, 2008). Read the essay.
- Contributions to Frieze (London), 2005-2007. Visit Dr. Balaschak's bio page.
More Information
Office Hours (On campus):
- Monday: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
- Wednesday: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM