{"id":312021,"date":"2026-03-04T04:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T04:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/312021\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T04:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T04:39:08","slug":"art-gallery-of-ontario-chief-curator-julian-cox-steps-down-after-eight-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/312021\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Gallery of Ontario chief curator Julian Cox steps down after eight years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

As the AGO\u2019s chief curator and deputy director, Julian Cox championed several notable acquisitions and oversaw the founding of the Department of the Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora.Cole Burston\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

After eight years as the Art Gallery of Ontario\u2019s chief curator and deputy director, Julian Cox has stepped down. The announcement was made on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Upon his hiring<\/a>, the London-born curator and museum administrator said it was the \u201cright time in my professional life for fresh challenges.\u201d That time has apparently arrived again. <\/p>\n

In a press statement, AGO director and chief executive officer Stephan Jost said Cox had a \u201cprofound and positive impact\u201d on the publicly funded gallery, and that the \u201cquality and appeal of the AGO\u2019s exhibitions, the significant growth of the collection, and his deep commitment to scholarship, all stand as hallmarks of his successful tenure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Cox joined the AGO in 2018.The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

It was Jost who hired Cox away from the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, where he had been chief curator since 2010. <\/p>\n

Cox did not provide a comment. His last day with the AGO will be April 13.<\/p>\n

The announcement was made less than a month after the gallery was rocked by the resignations<\/a> of a senior curator and two volunteer members of a collections committee that narrowly voted not to acquire a video work by Nan Goldin over accusations that the Jewish-American photographer has antisemitic views. <\/p>\n

The AGO had planned to jointly purchase Goldin\u2019s Stendhal Syndrome with the Vancouver Art Gallery and Minneapolis\u2019s Walker Art Center.<\/p>\n

AGO trustee, major donor Judy Schulich led internal push to prevent Nan Goldin acquisition<\/a><\/p>\n

Photography is Cox\u2019s specialty. He earned a master of philosophy degree in the history of photography from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (now Aberystwyth University), in 1990. While working at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles early in his career, he co-organized exhibitions of Man Ray and Julia Margaret Cameron at the AGO.<\/p>\n

Among the notable acquisitions he championed were works from the Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs, the Estate of Philip B. Lind, and the photographs of Peter Hujar. <\/p>\n

During a tenure that began in January, 2018, he oversaw the founding of the Department of the Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora and stewarded the gallery\u2019s collection through deaccessioning, acquisitions and commissions. <\/p>\n

He also brought exhibitions Matthew Wong: Blue View; Leonard Cohen: Everybody Knows; KAWS: FAMILY; and the currently showing Ranbir Sidhu: No Limits. He leaves behind the AGO\u2019s first public art commission, Couch Monster: Sadz\u011b\u0294 yaagh\u0119hch\u2019ill, a monumental bronze sculpture of an elephant by Brian Jungen installed in 2022 outside the gallery.<\/p>\n

The AGO said recruitment to replace Cox would begin in the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: As the AGO\u2019s chief curator and deputy director, Julian Cox championed several notable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69,49581],"class_list":{"0":"post-312021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-pleasemod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}