Alexander Alberro's areas of specialization are modern and contemporary European, U.S., and Latin American art, as well as the history of photography. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Howard Foundation fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship.

He is the author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity, and the editor of a number of books, including Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists' Writings; Art After Conceptual Art; Museum Highlights; Recording Conceptual Art; Two-Way Mirror Power; and Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology. His essays on contemporary art have appeared in a wide variety of journals and exhibition catalogues. Alberro is completing a book-length study of the emergence and development of abstract art in Latin America, and is beginning to work on a volume, Periodizing Contemporary Art, which explores new forms of art and spectatorship that have crystallized in the past two decades.

At Barnard he teaches the history of modern and contemporary art, as well as the history of photography.