LONG ISLAND CITY, NY.- Jenny Dixon, Director, The Noguchi Museum, has announced the appointment of Dakin Hart as Senior Curator at The Noguchi Museum, effective February 2013. In this capacity, he is responsible for the oversight and management of the Museum's curatorial affairs, including exhibition development, publication planning and logistics, and the care and interpretation of the collection. He will play a central role on the Museum's staff, reporting to the Director and working closely with other departments.

Ms. Dixon said, “On behalf of the Board of Trustees and staff, I am delighted to welcome Dakin Hart to The Noguchi Museum. His strong academic background and experience in both nonprofit arts administration and curatorial work will enable him to contribute to a broad range of the Museum’s programmatic and scholarly initiatives as it approaches its thirtieth anniversary.”

Mr. Hart stated, “I have long had a passion for museums in general, and a great interest in and engagement with sculpture in particular, including the work of Isamu Noguchi. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to exercise all of them on behalf of The Noguchi Museum.”

Since 2006, Mr. Hart has been a prolific independent curator and researcher. Recent projects have included an unconventional retrospective of work by the American Fluxus, mail, and book artist Davi Det Hompson, on view at the ZieherSmith Gallery, New York, through March 2, 2013; and Sculpture in So Many Words: Text Pieces 1960–1980, which was presented at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, from September 29, 2012–January 13, 2013.

From 2007–2010, he worked with Picasso scholar John Richardson to develop a series of exhibitions for Gagosian Gallery exploring aspects of Picasso’s career. These included Picasso’s Mosqueteros (New York, March 26–June 6, 2009) and Picasso: The Mediterranean Years, 1945–1962 (London, June 4–August 28, 2010). From 2006–2007, he was research assistant for Mr. Richardson on the third volume of the latter’s ongoing biography of Picasso, A Life of Picasso Vol. III: The Triumphant Years. He has forthcoming catalogue essays on Picasso, for an exhibition entitled Return to Earth: Ceramic Sculpture of Fontana, Melotti, Miró, Picasso, and Noguchi, 1943–1963, organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center, and on Mark Grotjahn’s painted bronzes, for Gagosian Gallery.

Previously, Mr. Hart was Assistant Director, Nasher Sculpture Center (2002–2004); Director of Arts Programs and Artistic Director, Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA (2000–2002); and Director of the Lucas Artist Residency Program, the third oldest artists’ community in the U.S. (2002). He was Assistant to the Director of The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from 1995–2000.

Dakin Hart earned his B.A. in English, with a minor in art history, from Georgetown University, and an M.A. in the history of art from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where he is presently working to complete his PhD (dissertation in process; projected 2013).