GLEN ELLYN, IL.- McAninch Arts Center at College of DuPage has announced that Justin Witte has been named curator/director of the Cleve Carney Art Gallery at College of DuPage. He succeeds Barbara Wiesen, who retired in June. In the interim, Seth Hunter, Adjunct Instructor at College of DuPage has been serving as Interim Acting Gallery Curator/Director since Wiesen’s departure.

“Seth and Justin are working to make the transition go monthly. I can’t thank Seth enough for his work and assistance getting us through this transition we truly could not have done it without him,” said MAC director Diana Martinez.

Witte, a resident of Chicago, is a curator, educator and artist with more than 15 years of gallery and museum experience. He comes to the Cleve Carney Art Gallery from Columbia College Chicago where he served as the Exhibition Manager in the Department of Exhibitions Performance and Student Spaces. In his seven years at Columbia he has curated a number of exhibitions including: “Slow Read, Midwinter and Fair Fair Use: Information Piracy and Creative Commons in Art and Design.” He was also responsible for the coordination of several large-scale exhibitions such as “Division of Labor and Risk: Empathy, Art and Social Practice.” He has worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and was a member and membership president of the influential Philadelphia artist cooperative Vox Populi. He received his MFA in Studio Art from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007 where he was a University Fellow. He continues an active art practice and is a past recipient of the Pew Fellowship for painting and is preparing for exhibitions of his work at Butler University and the Hyde Park Art Center. Throughout his career Justin has also worked as an educator having served as an adjunct faculty member at UIC, Northwestern University and Columbia College Chicago.

“I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the history and build on the excellent reputation of the Cleve Carney Art Gallery,” says Witte. “I believe that my role as curator is to present the ideas and trends present in contemporary art in a way that is accessible to everyone entering our space. It is my hope that the gallery will be a center of discussion and discovery for all members of the community”

The late Cleve Carney provided a significant legacy gift to establish the Cleve Carney Art Gallery, a one-story, 1,850-square-foot addition to the McAninch Arts Center. The gallery opened in February 2014 with its inaugural exhibition “Selections from Cleve Carney’s Art Collection” and offers year-round visual art exhibitions showcasing a variety of innovative art by regional, national and international artists. In conjunction with the Cleve Carney legacy gift, the College of DuPage Foundation has launched a three-year endowment campaign to ensure Carney’s generous gift is fully realized.

Current exhibitions at the Cleve Carney Art Gallery are “Past Time: American Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Jim and Beth Arient” (though Oct. 10) and “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” (through Nov. 11). And coming up Oct. 18 – Nov. 21, “Zoe Nelson: Recto / Verso.”