Tina Rivers Ryan is an American curator, researcher, author, editor, and art historian. Her expertise is in

new media art New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of new media, electronic media technologies. It comprises virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robo ...

, which includes

digital art Digital art, or the digital arts, is artistic work that uses Digital electronics, digital technology as part of the creative or presentational process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960 ...

, and

internet art upright=1.3, "Simple Net Art Diagram", a 1997 work by Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden Internet art (also known as net art or web art) is a form of new media art distributed via the Internet. This form of art circumvents the traditional dominance o ...

. She was a curator at the

Albright–Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum located adjacent to Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, United States. The museum shows modern art and contemporary art. It is directly opposite Buff ...

, now Buffalo AKG Art Museum, in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

, from 2017 to 2024. In 2024, Ryan was named the

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

of ''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

'' magazine.

Early life and education

Tina Rivers Ryan attended

Gulliver Preparatory School Gulliver Preparatory School or simply Gulliver Prep, is a private co-educational school. Its management offices are in Kendall, Florida, a census-designated place in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Its previous administrative offices were in Coral ...

in Miami for high school. She has a BA degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, and a PhD from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. Her dissertation was, Lights in Orbit': The Howard Wise Gallery and the Rise of Media in the 1960s'' (2014), her doctoral advisor was Branden W. Joseph. She worked as a

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

Career

In 2017, Ryan was hired as an assistant curator at Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York; and by 2022, she was promoted to curator. Prior to her appointment she previously worked at the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution at 2201 Jackson Avenue in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...

, and the

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an art museum and exhibition space located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple name chang ...

. Ryan has researched "time-based media" of the 1960s and 1970s. She has also been involved in the study and research of digital art preservation, including NFTs. Ryan and co-curator organized the 2021 exhibition ''Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art'' at the gallery. The ''Difference Machines'' exhibition features 17 artists and has a hybrid display design featuring interactivity, the artwork is technical but also accessible to people without technical knowledge, and it exists as a learning space. A review in ''

The Brooklyn Rail ''The Brooklyn Rail'' is an American publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics, based in Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, critics, and ...

'' discussed the exhibition's themes of "the use of digital technologies for passive (but not always effective) surveillance, how identities are shaped by technology, the erasure of marginalized communities, and the active reassertion of control." Other exhibitions at Albright-Knox she has co-curated include ''

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both ...

: A Retrospective'' (2018), and ''We The People: New Art from the Collection'' (2018–2019)''.'' In March 2024, Ryan was named the editor-in-chief of Artforum magazine, succeeding

David Velasco David Velasco (born October 23, 1978) is an American writer and editor. He was the editor-in-chief of the art magazine ''Artforum'' from 2017 to 2023. He is the editor of ''Modern Dance'', a 2017 series of books on contemporary choreographers pu ...

. Velasco was fired from his role due to supporting Palestinian causes, which sparked a boycott and criticism of Ryan for taking the role.

Publications

Co-authored or contributed

* * * Hearst, A., Kholeif, O., Ryan, T. R., Suler, J. R., & Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, host institution. (2023). ''I’ll be your mirror : art and the digital screen''. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Exhibition-related

* * * *

References