The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) announce the appointment of Blair French to the position of Assistant Director, Curatorial & Digital.
French has held the position of Executive Director of Artspace Visual Arts Centre since early 2006. Prior to this he was Program Manager at the Australian Centre for Photography and Associate Director at Performance Space. He previously worked in art galleries and museums in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. He holds an MA and PhD from the University of Sydney and has taught at the Universities of New South Wales, Waikato and Western Sydney. He was President of Contemporary Arts Organisations Australia (CAOs) from 2006 to 2009.
Blair has curated numerous exhibitions. Most recently he was curatorial convener for 6th SCAPE Public Art Christchurch Biennial (2010-12) and is curator for 7th SCAPE (2013). He has published widely. A selection of his essays were published in book form as Out of Time: Essays Between Photography and Art (2006), and a further book on Australian photo-based contemporary art – Twelve Australian Photo Artists – co-authored with Daniel Palmer was published in 2009. He has edited a range of publications, including the 1999 book Photo Files: An Australian Photography Reader as well as a number of Artspace books.
French will join the MCA on a part time basis in May and full time in July.