Tina Rivers Ryan


Tina Rivers Ryan is an American curator, researcher, author, editor, and art historian. Her expertise is in new media art, which includes digital art, and internet art. She was a curator at the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, now Buffalo AKG Art Museum, in Buffalo, New York, from 2017 to 2024. In 2024, Ryan was named the editor-in-chief of Artforum magazine.

Early life and education

Tina Rivers Ryan attended Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami for high school. She has a BA degree from Harvard University, and a PhD from Columbia University. Her dissertation was, 'Lights in Orbit': The Howard Wise Gallery and the Rise of Media in the 1960s, her doctoral advisor was Branden W. Joseph. She worked as a fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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, MoMA PS1, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. 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 discussed the exhibition's themes of "the use of digital technologies for passive 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: A Retrospective, and We The People: New Art from the Collection ''.''
In March 2024, Ryan was named the editor-in-chief of Artforum magazine, succeeding David Velasco. Velasco was fired from his role due to supporting Palestinian causes, which sparked a boycott and criticism of Ryan for taking the role.

Publications

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