Ken Miller (curator)


Ken Miller is a curator / writer-editor. He has presented exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia, often with private sponsorship. He has published several books of art, fashion and photography and initiated a recurring multimedia feature for T: The New York Times Style Magazine.

Curator

City of Tomorrow, a 2017 symposium presented by Ford for the introduction of new company CEO Jim Hackett at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, featured large-scale photographs specially commissioned by Miller.
In 2016, Miller curated murals, sculptures, installations and other visual art for Clarify, an 8 city program presented by music streaming service Spotify. Artists presented in Clarify included Saya Woolfalk, For Freedoms, Nina Chanel Abney, among others.
In 2015, Ken curated fashion photography for "Artists Series" at Gana Art in Seoul, Korea. In 2014, Ken curated two exhibitions at the Sundance Film Festival. 1MSQFT showcased music and design as part of a cultural programming series for Microsoft; SPACE, with sponsorship by Patagonia, presented landscapes by prominent fine art and fashion photographers. Photographers exhibited in SPACE included Juergen Teller, Jack Pierson, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Catherine Opie, Todd Hido and Mike Brodie.
In 2012-2013, Miller was curator for Fujifilm’s X-Series cameras. Photographers William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Nan Goldin, Ryan McGinley and Martin Parr were commissioned to shoot original photos using the cameras. The resulting photographs were presented at exhibitions in New York at the Aperture Foundation, Tokyo, Milan. and Seoul.
In 2010, Miller curated a ‘UT’ shirt series featuring black and white photography for apparel brand Uniqlo; the shirts featured contributions from Lee Friedander and Daidō Moriyama, among others, and were sold in Uniqlo stores worldwide. In 2011, he curated fashion week photos and videos for Milk Studios, in New York with support from Leica cameras and Vimeo.
For Fall 2008 New York Fashion Week, Miller curated a series of conversations on art, music, fashion, health and design for MINI Cooper cars. In 2009, Miller was consulting curator for a 'Saturdays at Phillips' auction of young artists by the Phillips de Pury auction house.
In 2003, Tokion founded Creativity Now, an annual arts and media conference in New York and Tokyo. Speakers at the conference were drawn from a variety of creative disciplines, and included musicians Brian Eno, Kim Gordon and James Murphy; fashion designers Proenza Schouler and Kim Jones; artists Tom Sachs, Doug Aitken and Raymond Pettibon; photographers Nan Goldin, Inez and Vinoodh, and Ryan McGinley, directors Lynne Ramsay, Mike Mills, Gaspar Noé, and John Cameron Mitchell; and graphic designer Peter Saville. In 2008 the Creativity Now conference won AdAge's Vanguard Award.

Works as editor

Miller most recently worked with Target and Chandelier Creative on the 2019 publication of Target; 20 Years of Design for All with Rizzoli International. The book collects the retailer's two decades of collaborations with designers such as Philippe Starck, Marimekko and Michael Graves, fashion designers such as Victoria Beckham, Stephen Sprouse, Alexander McQueen and Rodarte and celebrities such as Chrissy Teigen and Gwen Stefani.
Miller is interviewer and text editor for The Newsstand by Lele Saveri and Alldayeveryday, published by Skira Rizzoli in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. The Newsstand was presented at Fondation Luis Vuitton in Paris in 2017 as part of "Being Modern: MoMA in Paris".
In 2012, Miller was an editor of Opening Ceremony, a monograph on the fashion brand and retailer, published in 2012 by Rizzoli, with Opening Ceremony’s founders Carol Lim and Humberto Leon as authors and additional contributions from Spike Jonze and Chloë Sevigny. Opening Ceremony chronicled the first 10 years of the store’s history through advertising imagery, private snapshots, quotes and anecdotes.
In 2009-2010, Miller was editor of Spread Artculture magazine with cover profiles of Pharrell Williams and M.I.A. for B&A Reps.
Miller is author-editor of SHOOT: Photography of the Moment, a fashion and fine art ‘snapshot’ photography compilation published in 2009 with Rizzoli. SHOOT was supported with events and exhibitions at the New Museum in New York, Berkeley Art Museum, Tate Modern in London, Colette in Paris, FOAM Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam, UCCA in Beijing, and PARCO in Tokyo, with additional events and exhibitions in Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, and Mexico City.
In 2008, Miller was editor of Revisionaries, A Decade of Art in Tokion, published with Abrams Image. Revisionaries compiled art and interviews from nearly 100 artists who had contributed to the magazine.
From 2001-2007, Miller was editor of Tokion magazine, a youth-culture oriented design, arts and style magazine. Tokion published two separate editions in English and Japanese, with distribution in North America, Europe and Japan. As editor, Miller conducted numerous interviews with artists including Yoko Ono, Maurizio Cattelan, Mike Kelley, Yayoi Kusama, Ed Ruscha and Jeff Koons; musicians including Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Timbaland and Björk; filmmakers including Gus Van Sant, Michel Gondry, Harmony Korine, Miranda July and Judd Apatow; actors Samantha Morton, Chloë Sevigny and Isabelle Huppert; chef Nobu Matsuhisa; basketball player Yao Ming; and stuntman Evel Knievel.
In 1999-2000, Ken Miller was editor in chief for the New York office of modo, a wireless handheld guide to culture and nightlife from Scout Electromedia. Design for modo was provided by IDEO with an advertising campaign by Wieden+Kennedy.

Works as writer

Since 2013, Ken has been a writer for , contributing "Under the Influence", a recurring multimedia feature that profiles artists, musicians and designers such as Kara Walker, Janelle Monae and Alex Katz. He has additionally written for New York Magazine, W, Interview, V, Details, Purple and Business of Fashion. He has written travel books for Rough Guides and contributed travel writing to National Public Radio. He currently provides editorial content for Edition Hotels.