ROBERT ATKINS is a UC Berkeley-trained art historian, journalist, curator and educator. A former columnist for the Village Voice, he has written for more than 100 publications world-wide He is the author of the widely-translated ArtSpeak: A Guide to Contemporary Ideas, Movements ,and Buzzwords 1945 - Present and ArtSpoke its modern-art counterpart and prequel. An educator, he has taught at universities and art colleges including RISD and the University of Michigan, and is a fellow of the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at  Carnegie Mellon University. He has curated exhibitions at far-flung venues from New York’s New Museum and the Sao Paulo Bienal.

An activist, he co-founded Visual AIDS, the producers of “Day With(out) Art” and the “Red Ribbon.” He co-authored Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression and co-curated From Media to Metaphor: Art About AIDS, the first international traveling exhibition of AIDS art. A pioneer of online art resources, he produced TalkBack! A Forum for Political Discourse, Artery: The AIDS Art-Forum, served as art editor of The Media Channel, vice president/editor-in-chief of the Arts Technology Entertainment Network (a New York Times Video start-up company), and produced the first wiki about contemporary art in China.

He is the recipient of numerous awards from public and private sources including the National Endowment for the Arts, Microsoft, and the Penny McCall Foundation. He was an officer of AICA, the international association of art critics.