Peter Wang

Peter Wang is an Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Kentucky, where he specializes in modern/contemporary art, American art, and history of photography. His research and teaching interests include American art and visual culture, history of photography, museum studies, and race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary art. Prior to joining Kentucky, he taught at Saint Mary’s College (Indiana) and Butler University. Wang holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Tyler School of Art, Temple University with a dissertation entitled The Profane and Profound: American Road Photography from 1930 to the Present. He received his M.A. in Art Studies from National Central University, and a B.F.A. in Fine Arts (studio) from National Kaohsiung Normal University, both in Taiwan.

Wang’s primary research examines the enduring marriage between photography and the American road trip, contextualizing automobility and artists as motorists through themes of automobiles, highways and the roadside, including photographs by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Robert Frank, and Stephen Shore, among others. He is currently working on a book manuscript and a series of journal articles to reframe this genre study, especially representations and experiences of women, minorities, and foreigners. In the meantime, Wang is developing his next research project on Asian American art and visual culture. Wang recently collaborated with the Smithsonian American Art Museum for The Automobile and American Art exhibit, and he contributed to In the Streets: Modern Life and Urban Experiences in the Art of the United States (1893–1976) exhibition at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo in Brazil in collaboration with the Terra Foundation for American Art. His research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the Association of Historians of American Art (AHAA), the Henry Luce Foundation, the Popular Culture Association, and the Center for the Humanities at Temple University (CHAT).