Zoomin’ in on Barbara Pollack ’82

How Can We Think of Art at a Time Like This?

Barbara Pollack has been writing on art since 1994, often addressing the situation for artists in repressive regimes from a global perspective, particularly China. She is the author of many essays and books including most recently Brand New Art from China: A Generation on the Rise, published in 2018.

Pollack has regularly curated shows, starting with a 1996 show staged in her home titled My Friends in My Apartment and a one-day exhibition in 2001 at a local schoolyard, Yard Sale, with the cooperation of Simon Watson. In recent years, she has curated shows at the Tampa Museums of Art, Orange County Museum of Art, the Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai and the Yuz Museum, also in Shanghai.

In 2022, Pollack presented Mirror Image: Changing Chinese Identity at the Asia Society Museum in New York. She is a professor at the School of Visual Art.