The Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv has named Chen Tamir as its new Curator

The Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv has named Chen Tamir as its new Curator, Tamir will be taking over for Maayan Sheleff, who will leave the CCA to take up the inaugural curatorial residency at Art Port Tel Aviv. She will also hold the position of Assistant Director at the Curatorial Studies Program of the Kibbutzim College and the CCA. Chen Tamir, will be leaving her position as Program and Operations Manager of Artis in New York. Her exhibitions have been presented at venues including the Israeli Center for Digital Art and Museums of Bat Yam in Israel; Art in General and White Box in New York; and the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Saskatchewan, the University of Toronto’s Barnicke Gallery, and Gallery TPW in Canada. Sergio Edelsztein, CCA’s founding Director, says that “Chen brings great energy and wide experience working in diverse settings, including administrative and executive roles. She brings a unique mix of diverse international experience with a deep engagement in Israeli contemporary art and a strong academic background that will benefit the students at the Curatorial Studies Program, the Israeli art world, and the Tel Aviv public.” Chen holds a Master’s Degree in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; a B.F.A. in Visual Art; and a B.A. in Anthropology from York University in Toronto. She has lectured at the Power Plant, Sotheby’s, Art Gallery of Ontario, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, Open Engagement, Vanderbilt University, and the 2009 Scope Art Fair. Her writing has been published in FlashArt, C Magazine, BlackFlash and various monographs. From 2008 to 2011, Tamir served as Executive Director of Flux Factory, an artist-run center in Queens where she founded an acclaimed residency program and curated dozens of exhibitions.  She has been advising on the founding of a new prize for art and social engagement to be awarded next year by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School University, and she serves on several advisory boards including A Blade of Grass, Jerusalem Culture Unlimited, and EFA Project Space.  Since 2010, Tamir has been working with Artis, a nonprofit organization based in New York that supports and promotes artists from Israel internationally. While at Artis, she developed several professional development initiatives to benefit artists and other arts professionals, oversaw the Artis grant program, and organized several large-scale commissions.