MEGAN STEINMAN
Exhibitions + Publications + Public Programs
MEGAN STEINMAN is a museum administrator and curator with over 20 years of experience in the arts, entertainment, and culture industries. She currently serves as the first full-time Executive Director of Denniston Hill, an artist residency founded by artists Julie Mehretu, Paul Pfeiffer and Lawrence Chua.
From 2015-2020, Megan was the Founding Director of The Underground Museum in Los Angeles - guiding the museum’s storied transformation from an artist's storefront vision to a world-renowned contemporary art center locally anchored by civic engagement. Under her leadership, The Underground Museum launched seven critically acclaimed exhibitions and hosted hundreds of public events, including live music and dance performances, powerful lectures, four summer-long film festivals, a multi-year wellness program of yoga, meditation, and organic food services, and its annual Holiday Block Party.
Megan’s curatorial projects rooted in dance, performance, and new technologies have been shown at institutions around the world, including Dolby Gallery, Museo Pecci Milano, Sonos Studio Los Angeles, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, District Berlin, ICA Boston, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Her public programs include a live software-art workshop with Casey Reas and UCLA's Design Media Arts department and “Transmission of Trio A” with Yvonne Rainer. From 2017-2022, she was the lead curator for Tom Bradley West terminal at Los Angeles International Airport, where she organized four large-scale permanent installations commissioned by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, featuring artists Refik Anadol, Meriem Bennani, Sondra Perry, and Diana Thater.
Megan has written for several artist publications and exhibition catalogs, including Edges of the Experiment by Marie-Josè Jongerius (2014, Fw: Books Amsterdam) and Dance/Draw by Helen Molesworth (2011, ICA Boston/Hatje Cantz). Her published Master’s thesis, “The Kinesthetic Citizen: Dance and Critical Art Practices” (2011), examines the kinesthetic experience of six contemporary dance-based art works through the lens of political and spatial theories in order to locate political empathy in everyday movement, social encounters and lived experiences.
Megan holds a Master of Public Art Studies from the University of Southern California Roski School of Fine Art. Prior to graduate school, she was the Creative Director for Capitol Records. From 2000-2004, Megan was the chief researcher, producer and artist liaison for photographer Annie Leibovitz’s book “American Music.”
Publication images by Suzanne Strong.