Barbara London (curator)


Barbara London is a US curator and writer specializing in new media and sound art. She is best known for founding the video collection at the Museum of Modern Art, and for the leading acquisition of works by Nam June Paik, Laurie Anderson, Bruce Nauman, and other artists.

Education

London received a B.A. from Hiram College in 1968 and an M.A. from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, in 1972.

Career

London is the author of Video Art/The First Fifty Years, which traces the history of video art as it transformed into the broader field of media art.
In 2013, London organized and curated Soundings: A Contemporary Score, an investigative exhibition on contemporary sound art that was presented at MoMA. She edited and wrote the catalogue for the exhibition.
London joined MoMA's staff in 1970. As a young Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, she founded the video collection and exhibition programs in the mid-1970s, and organized the exhibition Bookworks in 1977. She is a visionary who has organized one-person exhibitions featuring trailblazers such as Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Steina Vasulka, Joan Jonas, Shigeko Kubota, Peter Campus, Gary Hill, Valie Export, and Laurie Anderson. She was also the first curator in the United States to showcase the works of Asian artists Song Dong, Teiji Furuhashi, Feng Mengbo, and Yang Fudong.
At MoMA, she organized more than 500 cutting edge media art exhibitions showcasing the work of pioneering artists active internationally. She also initiated Video Viewpoints, a four-year lecture series in which media artists regularly presented and discussed their work.
In 1997, London pioneered one of the first multimedia museum websites, Stir-Fry.A series of curatorial dispatches from China, the site was among the first publications to map the emerging field of Chinese media art.
After four decades as curator of media and performance art at MoMA, in 2013 she changed hats to write, curate, and teach at the Yale School of Art. She is a consultant to the Kadist Foundation and other organizations.

Exhibitions