Jeffery Byrd

Jeff Rufus Byrd is a performance and video artist who has presented work in major cities across the U.S. including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis. In live performances and social media projects, Byrd creates alternate personas or avatars to explore identity, gender, and power. He has also performed in China, Canada, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Columbia, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. His videos have been screened in Cuba, Mexico, Italy, Columbia, and Argentina. Byrd’s art is also in the collection of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York.

Byrd is a frequent lecturer at universities and art schools including: Parson’s School of Design, New York, Cardiff School of Art & Design, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Images of his art have been included in books published by Routledge Press, Rizzoli International, Simon & Schuster, and Brown & Benchmark. Byrd is also an arts writer and has published articles in the journals Performance Research; Femme Salée; and Live Art Almanac. Most recently, he contributed an essay to a book on the work of performance artist Marilyn Arsem.

Courses Taught

• ART 3060/3066 Performance Art 
• ARTHIST 1111 Survey Art History I
• ARTHIST 1222 Survey Art History II
• ARTHIST 4322 History of Photography
• ARTHIST 4350 Early 20th Century Art
• ARTHIST 4362 Late 20th Century and Contemporary Art
• ARTHIST 4352 History of Performance Art
• ART 4300 Critical Issues in Contemporary Art