Iwona Blazwick
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Iwona Blazwick OBE (b. 1955) is director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London.
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[edit] Life and career
Iwona Blazwick was brought up by her architect parents in Blackheath, South East London. (Blazwick is an anglicized form of her original surname Blaszczyk, which is of Polish origin).
Blazwick studied English and Fine Art at Exeter University before becoming an assistant curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, under the tutelage of Sandy Nairne, who is now director of the National Portrait Gallery. Her first exhibition was, Objects and Sculpture (1981), which included work by artists Bill Woodrow, Richard Deacon, Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley.
From 1984, to 1986, Blazwick was Director of AIR Gallery, London.
From 1986 to 1993, she was Director of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, where she curated exhibitions of modern and contemporary art.
From 1993 to 1997, Blazwick worked as an independent curator for museums and major public arts projects in Europe and Japan, devising surveys of contemporary artists and commissioning new works of art. During this period she was also Commissioning Editor for Contemporary Art at Phaidon Press where she created the ongoing book series, Contemporary Artists Monographs and Themes and Movements.
From 1997-2001, she was head of Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Modern, where she was responsible for co-curating the installation of the collection and formulating the exhibitions programme.
One of her first responsibilities at the Whitechapel Gallery was to sign the expansion programme contract.[1]
Blazwick is Chair of the Cultural Strategy Group at London's City Hall, appointed by Mayor Boris Johnson.[citation needed]
She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.
[edit] Curator/teacher
She has curated monographic shows of Katharina Fritsch, (Tate Modern) Art and Language, Willie Doherty, Peter Halley, Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Ilya Kabakov, Barbara Kruger, Meret Oppenheim, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Gerhard Richter, Rosemarie Trockel and Lawrence Weiner, (ICA). Blazwick was visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art and teaches occasionally at Goldsmith's School of Art, Central St. Martins, Middlesex University, the Slade School and Sotheby's MA Course. She has taught abroad at academies in Hamburg, Malmö and Vienna.
[edit] Writing
Her writings include contributions to monographs on Hannah Collins, Katharina Fritsch, Ilya Kabakov, Cornelia Parker, Lawrence Weiner and Rachel Whiteread, among others; and anthologies such as Fresh Cream in 2001. She was editor of the Tate Modern Handbook and Century City. She also writes art criticism for numerous periodicals. She contributes occasional reviews and commentaries for BBC and Channel Four television and BBC radio.
[edit] Juries
Blazwick has sat on certain art prize juries, including the Turner Prize (1993), the Jerwood Painting Prize (1997), and the 2002 Wexner Prize (as a member of Ohio's Wexner Center's International Arts Advisory Council).
