Melanie O'Brian


Melanie O'Brian is a Canadian Curator of Contemporary Art based in Vancouver, British Columbia where she is currently Director and Curator of Simon Fraser University Art Galleries, including Audain, Teck, and SFU gallery, since 2012. O’Brian was Assistant Curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery. O'Brian has taught at Emily Carr University and Simon Fraser University. O’Brian received her MA in Art History at the University of Chicago, Chicago IL, and her BA in Art History from Reed College, Portland, Oregon.

Education

O’Brian received her MA in Art History at the University of Chicago, Chicago IL, and her BA in Art History from Reed College, Portland, Oregon.

Career

O'Brian has taught at Emily Carr University. She was assistant curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery from 2001 to 2004, director and curator for Artspeak from 2004 to 2010 and the curator and head of programs at The Power Plant in Toronto from 2011 to 2012.
She is the editor of numerous publications including $5 Handshake: Art on Treaty 8 Territory, editor of 5,000 Feet is the Best: Omer Fast ; Stan Douglas: Entertainment ; Judgment and Contemporary Art Criticism with Jeff Khonsary ; and Vancouver Art & Economies.
As curator and head of programs at The Power Plant she curated solo exhibitions of work by Kerry Tribe, Stan Douglas, Omer Fast, and Simon Fujiwara, and group exhibitions that included the work of Abbas Akhavan, Karen Cytter, Geoffrey Farmer, Claire Fontaine, Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys, Oscar Tuazon, Ulla von Brandenburg, Franz West, among others. _
At SFU Galleries she has curated solo exhibitions of work by Hito Steyerl, Walid Raad, Raymond Boisjoly, Marianne Nicolson, Andreas Bunte: Erosion, and Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens: When the Guests Are Not Looking,, as well as co-curated group exhibitions such as Maps and Dreams with Brian Jungen, This Now, More Than Ever with Steve Collis, and Geometry of Knowing and Through a Window: Visual Art and SFU 1965-2015 with Amy Kazymerchyk. She also oversees the SFU Art Collection. She was a contributing curator to MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture'',