James Voorhies is a curator, art historian, and arts administrator with fifteen years of experience in leadership positions in art institutions and higher education. He approaches leadership as a collaboration where ideas serve as prompts for fostering innovative visions for healthy, compassionate, and vibrant ecosystems inside and beyond an institution’s walls.
During his tenure as Executive Director of the Tony Smith Foundation, James initiated research programs that placed the legacy of the modernist artist in dialogue with contemporary art and design, including editing and publishing the Tony Smith Catalogue Raisonné Project with MIT Press.
Prior to the Tony Smith Foundation, he served in academic leadership positions at California College of the Arts from 2016 to 2021. From 2013 to 2016, he held the endowed directorship of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University where he organized more than 70 exhibitions and public programs while lecturing for the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies and the Graduate School of Design.
From 2010 to 2013, James taught art history and critical theory at Bennington College, and from 2006 to 2011 he served as Director of Exhibitions at Columbus College of Art and Design.
Among his writings, he is author of Postsensual Aesthetics: On the Logic of the Curatorial and Beyond Objecthood: The Exhibition as a Critical Form since 1968, both published by MIT Press.
James is currently Chief Curator of The Bass Museum of Art where he provides the artistic direction for a curatorial program that coalesces the museum's contemporary art exhibitions, permanent collection, commissioned projects, education, and publications into a cohesive vision.
James Voorhies holds a PhD in Modern and Contemporary Art History from the Ohio State University. He has curated more than 150 exhibitions, site-specific commissions, and public programs. He is based in New York.
