NEW YORK, NY.- St. John’s University in New York City has named Owen Duffy as the new director of the Dr. M.T. Geoffrey Yeh Art Gallery. In this role, Duffy assumes leadership of the Yeh Art Gallery, which is located on the Queens campus in historic Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. He will oversee the contemporary art space’s exhibition program, educational initiatives, and fundraising efforts.

Duffy will contribute his extensive experience in development and curatorial programming to the Yeh Art Gallery, connecting the gallery’s exhibition program both with the university’s campus-wide academic initiatives and the wider Queens community. “I am thrilled by the opportunity to work with the St. John’s University community, synthesizing my fundraising, academic, and curatorial backgrounds with the goal of distinguishing the Yeh Art Gallery among the leading university art galleries in the country. We will be adapting diverse institutional models — from Tensta Konsthall in Sweden to the Queens Museum — to embed the gallery into the life of the university and borough alike.” He adds, “I am confident that together with the university’s esteemed leadership, our undertakings at the Yeh Art Gallery will further the university’s mission of service while asserting the gallery’s role as a site of critical inquiry and a creative resource for students, faculty, and the public.”

Duffy joins St. John’s University from the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD),where he was the Development Manager, Exhibitions. In this capacity, he spearheaded MAD’s exhibition-related fundraising initiatives, working with individual, foundation, government, and corporate donors. He also is a former Curatorial Assistant at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Exhibitions Manager at Virginia Commonwealth University where he earned his Ph.D. in Art Historical Studies under the direction of renowned scholar Robert Hobbs.

In addition to his previous institutional roles, Duffy has been an active independent curator and writer. Recent exhibitions include Common Forms at PEANA in Monterrey, Mexico and Savannah Knoop: Screens, a project about “community” at Essex Flowers in New York, the latter of which received critical acclaim from Art in America, Cultured, and artnet News, among several other publications. He has been a contributing editor for Momus, and has published his writing with ArtReview, BOMB, Frieze, Artforum, and Art & Education, among other outlets. He has presented his research at such institutions as the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and LASANAA Live Art Hub, Kathmandu. Recent scholarly publications include “Ai Weiwei’s Furniture-Sculpture: Radical Ambiguity and the Function of Critique” in the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, “Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate: Decentering the World” in Public Art: Place, Context, Participation (Institute of Art History, Lisbon, 2019), and “Collectivize, Cooperate, Collaborate: The International Context of Ashmina Ranjit’s Artistic Activism” in Silence No Longer: Artivism of Ashmina (Vajra Books, 2018).