Director and Curator, Visual Arts Center
MacKenzie Stevens received her BA in art history from the University of California, Berkeley and her MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. At the Visual Arts Center, Stevens has organized solo exhibitions with Carmen Argote, Joey Fauerso, Nikita Gale, Juan Pablo González, Madeline Hollander, Michael Queenland, Luiz Roque, and Kenneth Tam, amongst others, as well as a mid-career survey featuring the work of Houston-based artist, Lisa Lapinski. In 2022, Stevens co-curated a group exhibition with Adele Nelson titled Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil, focusing on Brazilian contemporary art. Social Fabric received The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Grant in 2019.
Currently, Stevens is at work on two books: a monograph, focusing on the work of Lisa Lapinski, which will be published by Inventory Press in 2023 and the accompanying catalogue for Social Fabric, which will be published by UT Tower Books in 2023.
Prior to joining the Visual Arts Center, Stevens was part of the curatorial team at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. There, she organized exhibitions, performances and public programs, contributing to a number of exhibitions with artists such as Marwa Arsanios, Kevin Beasley, Petrit Halilaj, Maria Hassabi, Judith Hopf, and Pedro Reyes, amongst others. She was part of the curatorial team for Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only and Made in L.A. 2018 — the Hammer’s biannual museum-wide exhibition that celebrates the work of artists living and working in the greater Los Angeles area. Stevens contributed to the exhibition catalogues for Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World and Made in L.A. 2018.
Prior to her tenure at the Hammer, Stevens held curatorial and research positions in Los Angeles and New York City at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Pace Gallery, New York.