Karen Moss is an art historian and curator who has worked in museum and academic positions since 1980.  Currently she is the Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs at the Orange County Museum of Art where she worked since 2003, first as a strategic planning consultant (2003-04) then as Curator of Collections and Director of Public Programs (2005-08). During her tenure at OCMA Moss has curated exhibitions including Art Since the 1960s: California Experiments (2007-08) Disorderly Conduct: Recent Art in Tumultuous Times (2008) Chris Burden: Tale of Two Cities (2007); Imaging and Imagining California (2007) and was co-curator for California Modern (2005-06) and the 2006 California Biennial. She also curated Bruce and Norman Yonemoto: Video from the 1980s (2007), The Imaginary 20th Century (2008) and Nam June Paik: Global Groove (2006) at the Orange Lounge media space in Costa Mesa. Additionally, Moss oversees all of OCMA’s public programs, including artists’ talks, panels, symposia, films and the Orange Crush music series.

Prior to her work at Orange County Museum of Art, Moss was the Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at San Francisco Art Institute (1999-2004) where she curated exhibitions, artists residency projects and public programs. She worked at the Walker Art Center as an Associate Curator (1995-96) and Director of Education and Community Programs (1996-1999) curating exhibitions, overseeing public and interpretive programs, and working on the WAC’s award-winning website. Moss was the Director of Programs at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (1989-1993) where she curated exhibitions and organized the museum’s Artists Project Series. Earlier in her career she was an Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1985-87), Assistant Curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (1983-85) and a Curatorial Assistant at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1980-81). She did a curatorial internship at the Berkeley Art Museum (1978-79) and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in Art History/Museum Studies (1979-80).

Moss has a B.A. in studio art and art history from the University of California at Santa Cruz and did her graduate work in art history at University of California, Berkeley and University of Southern California (MA, PhD/ABD). She currently teaches contemporary art history and theory at the USC Roski School of Fine Arts and at California State University Long Beach. During the past twenty years she has also taught at Otis College of Art and Design, Loyola Marymount University and San Francisco Art Institute and been a guest lecture at art schools and universities including: Art Center College of Design, the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, Pomona College, San Francisco State University, U.C. Davis, U.C. Irvine and the University of Minnesota.