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Gabriel Ritter
Director of the Art, Design & Architecture Museum | UC Santa Barbara
Gabriel Ritter is a curator and art historian specializing in avant-garde visual art practices of modern/contemporary Japan ranging from Surrealism of the 1930s, to bodily abstraction of the Gutai Art Association (1954-1972), as well as the concept of “nonsense” as a critical lens for critiquing the status-quo and connecting Dada-inspired, socially engaged anti-art practices of the 1960s to the present day. His research has gravitated toward exploring the pressures on avant-garde art production during times of crisis throughout Japanese history including the Fifteen Year War (1931-1945), the Allied Occupation and immediate postwar period (1945-1952), the ANPO student protest movement (1960-70), as well as art made in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011).
Ritter holds a joint position as Director of the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara, as well as Associate Professor in the History of Art & Architecture Department. Prior to his appointment at UCSB Ritter served as Curator and Head of Contemporary Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) where in addition to the exhibition program, Ritter was responsible for growing and diversifying the Contemporary Art collection, with increased focus on female artists, artists of color, and those who openly identify at LGBTQI+. |