Diana Campbell Betancourt is an American curator working in South and Southeast Asia, primarily Bangladesh and the Philippines. Currently she is the artistic director of Dhaka-based Samdani Art Foundation and chief curator of the Dhaka Art Summit. Formerly based in Mumbai for six years, she facilitated inter-regional South Asia dialog through her exhibitions and public programmes.
Career
Campbell Betancourt's focus is inter-Asia dialog and can be seen through her exhibitions and public programmes. She chairs the board of the Mumbai Art Room, has been a research fellow at the Henry Moore Institute, the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, and has collaborated with sculpture parks including Yorkshire Sculpture Park, de Cordova, and Wanas Konst on commissions of Indian sculpture. She has consulted the New Museum and MCA Chicago and many other leading institutions on their inclusion of South Asia in their exhibitions programs and has presented and published her research as part of MoMA's C-MAP initiative. She was a nominee for the 2016 Independent Curators International Independent Vision Curatorial Award and participated in MoMA's 2016 International Curatorial Institute, and gave the 2016 Key Note Lecture for Artspace Sydney's International Visiting Curators programme. Campbell Betancourt was appointed the curator of Frieze Projects for Frieze London 2018 – overseeing the artist award commission by Alex Baczinski-Jenkins, the Film Program, and LIVE. Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation Diana Campbell Betancourt has developed the Dhaka Art Summit to be the world's leading research and exhibitions platform for art from South Asia, and developed a new philanthropic platform to shift the discourse away from an Indo-centric one by bringing together artists, architects, curators, and writers from across South Asia and through a largely commission based model where new work and exhibitions are born in Bangladesh. She has curated numerous solo projects with artists such as Raqib ShawHaroon Mirza, Simryn Gill, Tino Sehgal, Lynda Benglis, Shilpa Gupta, Shahzia Sikander, Naeem Mohaiemen, Runa Islam, Shumon Ahmed, Pawel Althamer, Asim Waqif, and Raqs Media Collective as well as group exhibitions such as Rewind ), Mining Warm Data, The Asian Art Biennale in Context and Bearing Points and initiated a free, alternative education program called Samdani Seminars and Education Pavilion which bridges the gaps in curriculum between the various art schools in Dhaka with international guest faculty. Campbell Betanourt has conceived of the Dhaka Art Summit as a cumulative event, stressing that it is 'not about the individual editions; it is a continuation, and it always builds on the last one'. In addition to her exhibitions making practice, Betancourt is also responsible for developing the Samdani Art Foundation collection, which has been recognized by ArtReview, Artnet News, Artnet News, and Artnews as one of the leading collections in the world. The collection, as well as temporary exhibitions related to it, will be visible in the foundation's art centre that will open in Sylhet, Bangladesh at the end of 2018. Bellas Artes Projects From 2016 to 2018, Campbell Betancourt served as the founding artistic director of Bellas Artes Projects – a production based residency program and exhibition space in Bagac, Bataan and Manila, Philippines under the patronage of Jam Acuzar. She produced and curated critically acclaimed exhibitions by Carlos Amorales, Pawel Althamer, Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan, Cian Dayrit, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, as well as the first major solo exhibition in Asia of the late American artist Bruce Conner.
