Dallas, TX—April 6, 2023—The Dallas Museum of Art has appointed Ade Omotosho as The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art. A native North Texan who specializes in contemporary art of the global Black diaspora, Omotosho comes to the Museum with curatorial and publications experience at the Pérez Art Museum Miami; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and, most recently, the Clark Art Institute. He will report to and work closely with Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the department’s Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, to develop research on the Museum’s contemporary holdings and help drive its robust contemporary art acquisition program. Moreover, in his exhibition and collection development, Omotosho will focus on narratives often excluded from the canon, with a focus on emerging artists and trends in contemporary art in Texas and beyond. He began at the DMA on April 3, 2023.
“The Dallas Museum of Art is proud to be a wide-reaching encyclopedic institution with deep roots in our local communities,” said the DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director Agustín Arteaga. “Ade’s own Texas roots and knowledge of the local and regional arts scene, along with his broad range of curatorial, editorial and research experience at institutions across the country, will contribute greatly to our scholarship and acquisition efforts in contemporary art across disciplines.”
“I am thrilled to welcome Ade to the team as we continue our efforts to enhance the strength, breadth and public reach of our contemporary holdings,” added Brodbeck. “He brings an exciting mix of interdisciplinary expertise that will be a tremendous boon to our exhibitions, collections and scholarship.”
Omotosho recently completed his master’s degree in Art History from the Williams College graduate program, where he conducted and presented research on Tongues Untied (1989), Marlon Riggs’ experimental documentary film about gay Black communities, and worked in the publications department at the Clark Art Institute. He has held curatorial fellowships at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (Ford Foundation Curatorial Fellow), during which he curated a photography installation for the institution’s 35th anniversary exhibition, and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow), where he worked alongside curator of photography Malcolm Daniel. In these roles, he also conducted extensive research on the institutions’ collections and helped recommend works for acquisition. Additionally, Omotosho recently served as editor-at-large for Miami-based art criticism publication Burnaway Magazine; he also has art criticism bylines in Art in America, Artforum and Hyperallergic, among others.
“I grew up visiting the Dallas Museum of Art as a teenager from Murphy, and I fondly recall many of the exhibitions I encountered in the galleries. To now join my hometown institution and become part of the team that makes these inspiring moments possible is an incredible honor,” said Omotosho. “I look forward to delving into and diversifying the Museum’s contemporary collection while forging meaningful conversations with the DMA’s audiences sparked by contemporary artists from around the world.”
Omotosho graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 2017, where he received his bachelor's degree in Art History with honors. In 2015 he received a Fulbright-Hays Grant for intensive Yoruba language study at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
About the DMA Contemporary Art Collection
The Dallas Museum of Art has one of the leading collections of contemporary art in an American encyclopedic museum. The collection encompasses over 4,000 works from 1945 to the present, including major holdings of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism; Conceptualism, time-based media and installation works; photography; and the work of emerging artists. The Museum has particular strengths in German, Italian, East Asian and Latin American art, as well as in art of the African diaspora. Additions of work by today’s established and emerging artists continue the DMA’s distinguished history of collecting the art of the present, including recent acquisitions of works by Chris Ofili, Lorna Simpson, Carolee Schneeman, Mel Bochner, Alex Katz, Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Nari Ward, Barbara Kruger, Salman Toor and Cecilia Vicuña. Works by Texas artists, including Ja’Tovia Gary, Annette Lawrence and Nic Nicosia, have consistently been acquired.