Gary Sangster

Gary Sangster is a lecturer at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW. He has international experience as an art educator, curator, writer, and museum director in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the USA. His leadership roles include: Chief Curator, National Gallery of Art, Wellington, NZ; Curator, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Director, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, an innovative museum dedicated to collaboration and intervention with civic, cultural, and educational institutions across Baltimore; Executive Director, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art; Executive Director, Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco, a leading international, multi-disciplinary artist-in-residence program; Director of Artspace, Sydney; and Dean of the Art Institute of Boston, Lesley University, Boston.

He has organized more than 100 museum exhibitions, including several groundbreaking, collaborative projects, such as Making Appearances, Copenhagen, Painting History: Komar + Melamid, Australia and New Zealand, Perspecta, Sydney, Sighting References, Sydney, Melbourne, and Wellington, NZ, The Decade Show and Cadences, NYC; Promises and States of Loss, Jersey City; Urban Evidence, Cleveland Museum of Art; Mysterious Voyages, Impact, SNAPSHOT, Visibility, Imperfect Innocence, and Facing Museums, Baltimore, Breathtaking & Immersion, Boston; and Breathing Time, and Vital Signs, New Orleans.

Sangster has also organized touring survey projects by leading international artists, Mary Kelly, Kerry James Marshall, Genevieve Cadieux, and commissioned projects by Isaac Julien and Dennis Adams. He was curator for the USA exhibition by Judith Barry, Articulate Spatial Projections, at the 8th International Biennale, Cairo, Egypt, awarded the Grand Prize for Best Pavilion.

In the context of universities, colleges and art museums, Sangster has published and lectured extensively, including keynote addresses at the College Art Association and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has received exhibition catalogue awards from the American Association of Museums.

Sangster has also received numerous research and project grants or support from leading funders in the USA: USIA, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council, the Peter Norton Family Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trust, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Gund Foundation, The Cleveland Foundation, National Education Association, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The Baltimore Foundation, The George Soros Foundation, Michael Bloomberg, Toby Devan Lewis, Peter B. Lewis, and Dennis and Debra Scholl.