Minneapolis Institute of Art hires contemporary curator from Dallas

Gabriel Ritter, photo courtesy of the Dallas Museum of Art

The Minneapolis Institute of Art has picked Gabriel Ritter to head its contemporary art department starting in May.

Ritter is the second curator that the Minneapolis museum has poached from a Texas institution in 2016. Two weeks ago, the museum announced that it had hired Yasufumi Nakamori fromMuseum of Fine Arts, Houston. He will head Minneapolis' department of photography and new media starting May 31.

Announcing Ritter's appointment, Institute director Kaywin Feldman cited his wide experience organizing internationally and nationally important shows of contemporary art, his savvy talents as a liaison between institutions and artists, and his in depth knowledge of Japanese art and culture.

"We are particularly excited about his expertise in contemporary Japanese art, given our extraordinary holdings in the historicJapanese collection," Feldman noted in a statement.

Ritter has been assistant curator of contemporary art at the Dallas Museum of Art since May 2012. During his tenure there he organized solo shows featuring the work of Stephen Lapthisophon, Slavs and Tatars, Chosil Kil and Margaret Lee. His 2015 group exhibition "Concentrations 59: Mirror Stage -- Visualizing the Self After the Internet" featured video work by Ed Atkins, Trisha Baba, Antoine Catala, Aleksandra Domanovic, Jon Rafman, Jacolby Satterwhite, Hito Steyerl, and Ryan Trecartin.

Drawing on his expertise in Japanese culture, he co-organized "Between Action and the Unknown: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Sadamasa Motonaga" and edited its scholarly catalogue. Turning to Texas he staged shows featuring the Dallas museum's contemporary acquisitions, the North Texas art scene, and an installation about Dallas' art space.

When Walker Art Center's "International Pop" show traveled to Dallas in 2015, Ritter oversaw its installation at the DMA.

Ritter emphasized photography, video, installations, and Japanese talent when recommending art for the DMA to purchase. Among his acquisitions are pieces by Darren Bader, Anne Collier, Sharon Hayes, Annette Kelm, Sadamasa Motonaga, Shinro Ohtake, Rachel Rose, Kazuo Shiraga, Hito Steyerl, Koki Tanaka, Mika Tajima, and Christopher Williams.

He is currently completing his Ph.D. in art history at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he also earned his M.A. in art history, and B.A. in art history and Japanese. On a Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Ritter did dissertation research on Japanese surrealism.

Prior to his tenure in Texas, Ritter was a curatorial assistant at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles for three years.

The Minneapolis museum ramped up its commitment to contemporary art in 2008 when it established a department focused on the field. Previously it had acquired post WWII art sporadically, but left that turf primarily to nearby Walker Art Center. Under founding contemporary curator Elizabeth Armstrong, the contemporary department collected broadly across international boundaries and often integrated the new art into the museum's traditional departments including African, Chinese, European paintings and even the period rooms.

Armstrong left to become director of the Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Springs, California starting in January 2015.