Joshua Siegel Promoted to Curator, Department of Film
Posted on April 10, 2014
Joshua Siegel, who has organized or co-organized more than 90 exhibitions for The Museum of Modern Art since joining the Museum as a curatorial assistant in 1993, has been promoted to Curator in the Department of Film. Among his significant and critically acclaimed exhibitions are Vienna Unveiled: A City in Cinema (2014); Art Theater Guild and Japanese Underground Cinema, 1962-1986 (2013); The Rolling Stones: 50 Years on Film (2012); The New India (2009); the gallery and film exhibition Jazz Score (2008); the gallery installation Projects 84: Josiah McElheny (2007), which traveled to the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and was acquired for its permanent collection; and The Łódź Film School of Poland: 50 Years (1999), for which the Polish government awarded him an amicus poloniae. In 2013, he had a curatorial residency at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna, and in 2007 he received MoMA’s Lee Tenenbaum Award for curatorial excellence.
His monographic exhibitions include Werner Schroeter (2012), Dziga Vertov (2011), Frederick Wiseman (2010), Spike Jonze (2009), Julien Duvivier (2009), Peter Hutton (2008), Michael Haneke (2008), Gregory La Cava (2005), Christopher Guest (2005), Olivier Assayas (2003), Jean Painlevé (2000), Errol Morris (1999), Marguerite Duras (1998), and Jeanne Moreau (1994).
In 2002, he co-founded To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation; now celebrating its twelfth year, the festival has showcased more than 1,000 film restorations from archives, studios, and distributors around the world. He has acquired more than 400 films and media installations for MoMA’s permanent collection, including major collections of Frederick Wiseman, Jack Smith, Errol Morris, Ingmar Bergman, Kelly Reichardt, Tissa David, Jem Cohen, and Peter Hutton; films from Iran, Taiwan, Japan, India, and beyond; and media installations by John Bock, Cindy Sherman, Robin Rhode, Lucy Raven, Matthew Buckingham, Matt Saunders, Allan Sekula, and others.
Mr. Siegel is the co-editor and author of the 2010 publication Frederick Wiseman (MoMA/Gallimard), which features original essays by David Denby, Errol Morris, Christopher Ricks, Joshua Siegel, William T. Vollmann, Frederick Wiseman, and others. Together with curators Kirk Varnedoe and Paola Antonelli, Mr. Siegel co-organized a major reinstallation of The Museum of Modern Art, Open Ends, as part of MoMA2000, and co-edited the accompanying catalogue, Modern Contemporary: Art at MoMA Since 1980. He is also the author of two monographs, Baby, It’s Cold Outside: A History of Finnish Cinema, and The Łódź Film School of Poland: 50 Years.
Since 2012, Mr. Siegel has served on the selection committee for New Directors/New Films, the annual festival, now in its 43rd year, co-presented by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center. His involvement with contemporary art and cinema also includes moderating onstage conversations with AA Bronson, Chris Burden, Matthew Buckingham, Moyra Davey, Marcel Dzama, James Franco, Michael Haneke, Christian Jankowski, William E. Jones, Zoe Leonard, Sharon Lockhart, John Pilson, Matías Piñeiro, Lucy Raven, Allan Sekula, Christopher Williams, and many others. With the non-profit art space Ballroom Marfa, he is the co-founder and curator of the first American “art house” Drive-In, scheduled to open in Marfa, Texas, in mid-2015. He currently serves on the Executive Board of Cinema Tropical, a non-profit organization devoted to Latin American cinema in the United States, and on the Creative Time Reports Advisory Committee. Mr. Siegel has lectured widely and conducted studio crits at such institutions as Yale, Columbia, Cranbrook, Pixar, USC, and the University of Warsaw; has served on numerous grant panels including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Alpert Award in the Arts/CalArts, and The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship at Harvard University; and has been a jury member of many international film festivals including BAFICI (Buenos Aires), Torino, and Vancouver.
Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, said, “Josh Siegel, having dedicated his entire career to the study and celebration of the moving image at MoMA, is one of the most admired film curators of his generation. I, as well as cinephiles across the city and the globe, look forward to what this next chapter in Josh’s research and exhibition planning at the Museum will bring.”
