Paul O’Neill, who joins Bard College from Bristol, England, is widely regarded as one of the foremost scholars in the history of exhibitions and curatorial practice. Having taught numerous curatorial and visual arts programs in Europe, O’Neill is one of the most widely published authors in the field, most recently with The Culture of Curating, the Curating of Culture(s), published by MIT Press in 2012. He received his doctorate in visual culture from Middlesex University, London in 2007.

As director of the graduate program, O’Neill will be responsible for all aspects of the Center’s academic program, including curriculum and faculty development, supervising student-curated projects, directing research initiatives for CCS Bard, and organizing the Center’s artist-in-residence and curator-in-residence programs. O’Neill will work closely with CCS Bard executive director Tom Eccles to further enhance the Center’s pedagogical mission to be an innovative center for the study of curatorial practice and the history of contemporary art. O’Neill takes the position formerly held by Johanna Burton, who will continue as a faculty member of CCS Bard.

Curatorial Work

O’Neill has co-curated more than fifty exhibition projects across the world including The Curatorial Timeshare, Enclave, London (since 2012); Last Day., Cartel, London (2012); Our Day Will Come, part of Iteration: Again, Hobart, Tasmania (2011); We are Grammar, Pratt Institute, Manhattan Gallery, New York (2011); Coalesce: happenstance, SMART, Amsterdam (2009); Making Do, The Lab, Dublin (2007); Coalesce: With All Due Intent, the Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo (2005); La La Land (2005) and General Idea: Selected Retrospective, Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2006); Tonight, Studio Voltaire, London, (2004); Are We There Yet?, Glassbox, Paris (2000); In Consistency, Artur R. Rose Gallery, London (1999) and Bez Paszportu, Zacheta Gallery of Contemporary Art, Warsaw (1998). He is international tutor on the de Appel Curatorial Program, Amsterdam, and international research fellow with The Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media, Dublin. From 2007 to 2010, he was responsible for directing the major international research program Locating the Producers at Situations, University of the West of England, Bristol. He has previously held lecturing positions on the MFA in Curating, Goldsmiths, University of London and Visual Culture, Middlesex University, amongst others. Between 2001 and 2003, he was the Curator of London Print Studio Gallery, where he curated group shows such as Private Views; Drawn Out; Frictions; A Timely Place…Or Getting Back to Somewhere; All That is Solid and solo projects: Being Childish Billy Childish; Production: Anthony Gross; Phil Collins Reproduction Timewasted; Harrowed: Faisal Abdu’ Allah; and Locating: Corban Walker. He was Artistic Director of Multiples X from 1997 to 2006; an organization that commissioned and supported curated exhibitions of artist’s editions, which he established in 1997 and included exhibitions at spaces such as the ICA, London; Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin; Ormeau Baths, Belfast; Glassbox, Paris, and The Lowry, Manchester.

Writing

O’Neill’s writing has been published in many books, catalogues, journals, and magazines and he is a regular contributor to Art Monthly. He is Reviews Editor for Art and the Public Sphere Journal and on the editorial board of The Exhibitionist, and The Journal of Curatorial Studies. He is editor of the curatorial anthology Curating Subjects (2007), and co-editor of Curating and the Educational Turn with Mick Wilson (2010), both published by de Appel and Open Editions (Amsterdam and London), and author of Locating the Producers: Durational Approaches to Public Art (Amsterdam, Valiz, 2011), edited with Claire Doherty. He is currently co-editing a new anthology, Curating Research (Open Editions and de Appel, September 2013), and co-authoring a new book with Mick Wilson titled The Aesthetics of Duration: Time in Contemporary Art (London, I.B Tauris, 2014). He recently completed the authored book The Culture of Curating, the Curating of Culture(s), (Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2012).