CAA News Today

Academe

Alan C. Braddock (photograph by Karen Sherry)

Alan C. Braddock, an art historian specializing in American art, has been promoted to the rank of associate professor in the Department of Art History at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Christopher M. Cassidy, an artist and associate professor of design at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, has been awarded tenure in his school’s Department of Art.

Jeff McMahon, a performance artist and writer, has received tenure and been promoted to associate professor in the School of Theatre and Film at the Herberger of for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University in Tempe. He will be on sabbatical for the 2011–12 academic year.

Adele E. Nelson, a writer and art historian specializing in the modern and contemporary art of Brazil, has been appointed a visiting assistant professor of art history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, for the 2011–12 academic year.

Museums and Galleries

Margarita Aguilar

Margarita Aguilar, a senior specialist in Latin American art at Christie’s, has been appointed the director of El Museo del Barrio in New York. Aguilar worked in the curatorial department at El Museo from 1998 to 2006.

Wassan Al-Khudhairi, a specialist on contemporary art from the Arab world with an emphasis on Iraq and chief curator of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar, has been named one of six joint artistic directors of the ninth Gwangju Biennal, taking place in 2012 in South Korea.

Elizabeth Brown has stepped down from her position as chief curator and director of exhibitions and collections of the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle. She was responsible for many innovative exhibitions over her ten-year tenure, including solo shows of work by Lari Pittman, Brian Jungen, Kiki Smith, Eirik Johnson, and William Kentridge.

Douglas Druick

Douglas Druick, a curator and department chair at the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, has been named president and Eloise W. Martin Director of the museum. A member of the Department of Prints and Drawings since 1985, he joined the Department of Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture in 2006, leading both departments.

Natasha Egan, associate director and curator of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois, has been promoted to director. An eleven-year veteran of the museum, Egan hopes to amplify the visibility of the institution in her new position and to continue supporting international dialogue.

Paul Ha

Paul Ha, director of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in Missouri since 2002, has been appointed as the new director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, effective December 1, 2011.

Russell Lord

Russell Lord, a scholar, curator, and writer, has been named the Freeman Family Curator of Photography at the New Orleans Museum of Art in Louisiana. He will begin work on October 17, 2011.

Will South, chief curator of the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio, has been appointed the chief curator at the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina. He succeeds Todd Herman, who has become executive director of the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock.

John R. Stomberg

John R. Stomberg, formerly deputy director and chief curator at the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts, has become the next Florence Finch Abbott Director of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Kristina Van Dyke

Kristina Van Dyke, curator for collections and research at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, has been named director of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in Saint Louis, Missouri, succeeding Matthias Waschek. She begins her new position on November 7, 2011.

Organizations and Publications

Holland Cotter (photograph by Bradley Marks)

Holland Cotter, an insightful writer and recipient of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in criticism, has been named the co–chief art critic for the New York Times. He will share the position with his fellow critic at the newspaper, Roberta Smith.

Ofelia Garcia

Ofelia Garcia, an artist and professor of art at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, has been appointed chair of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, succeeding Sharon Burton Turner.

Deborah Solon, a renowned scholar, educator, and curator, has been named the West Coast director of American art at Heritage Auctions. A specialist in American Impressionism, she will work in the auction house’s office in Beverly Hills, California.