Throughout her 35-year career Julie Langsam has examined issues of beauty, idealization and the notion of the sublime, as well as the interconnected legacy of stylistic tropes, in work that spans painting, drawing, photography, printmaking and installation. Langsam often combines images that reference both the romantic sublime of the 19th century and the 20th century’s utopian ideals of high modernism as a way to examine ideas about ‘nature’ and ‘progress’ within the context of the 21st century. Langsam is currently editing her feature-length experimental/documentary “road movie” that, through the lens of the landscape, examines the centuries of racist policies that have shaped the United States. Etched into the landscape are reminders of the forced removal of peoples; the extraction of natural resources; the subsequent pollution of land, water, air; and economic policies that promote ‘growth’ and ‘shareholder profit’ at the expense of workers and communities. Her short film Garden State will be released this year which she filmed in her home state of New Jersey during Covid-times.


Langsam has exhibited nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include Gallery Thomas Jaeckel; Frederieke Taylor Gallery; and Michael Steinberg Fine Art in NYC; Maass Gallery at SUNY Purchase; Espai 8 in Barcelona; Reykjavik Art Gallery, Iceland; and Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, among others. She is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award and is represented in collections throughout the United States and Europe. Among Langsam's other activities she is curator of such exhibitions as Color as Structure at Frederieke Taylor Gallery in NYC and The Big Bang at SPACES Gallery in Cleveland, OH. Langsam is currently Associate Professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers and was former Motto Endowed Chair and Head of Painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art.