Tate Britain Director

Function

Conceive and execute the curatorial programme of collection displays and exhibitions at Tate Britain and to represent the gallery externally and internally.

Biography

• Director, Tate Britain since 2015
• 2007–15 Director, Nottingham Contemporary
• 2000–07 Independent curator and writer, London; Research Fellow, Royal College of Art
• 1999–2000 Head of Exhibitions, Centre for Visual Arts, Cardiff Exhibitions Director
• 1994–99 Curator/Head of Exhibitions, Spacex, Exeter Exhibitions Director

Alex Farquharson is a curator, writer and lecturer. He was the first Director of Nottingham Contemporary, which since opening in 2009 has become one of the leading centres for contemporary art in the UK. While his specialism is contemporary art, his exhibitions and programmes have often created dialogues between the art of today and historic and modern art. Solo exhibitions he has curated or co-curated include Huang Yong Ping, Wael Shawky, Glenn Ligon, Frances Stark, Jack Goldstein, Lari Pittman, Thomas Demand, Klaus Weber, Danh Vo, Carol Rama, Mika Rottenberg and Alfred Kubin; and from Britain, James Gillray, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Gustav Metzger, Richard Long, Simon Starling, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and Pablo Bronstein. Group exhibitions he has curated or co-curated include British Art Show 6 (Gateshead, Manchester, Nottingham, and Bristol), If Everybody had an Ocean (Tate St Ives & CAPC Bordeaux), Rights of Nature: Art and Ecology in the Americas (Nottingham Contemporary), and Aquatopia: the Imaginary of the Ocean Deep (Tate St Ives). His writings include Isa Genzken (Phaidon), Richard Wright (DCA), Thomas Demand (Prada Foundation) and Sean Landers (Kunsthalle Zurich), and he has often written for Frieze, Artforumand Art Monthly on both art and curating. He has taught and lectured widely, in particular on the Curating Contemporary Art MA at Royal College of Art. He is a Trustee of Raven Row and is currently a member of the Arts Council Acquisitions Committee.