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William Olander The Practice Of An Activist Curator, Gayle Rodda Kurtz

Theses and Dissertations

William Olander, Senior Curator of The New Museum of Contemporary Art, was born July 14, 1950, and died of AIDS March 18, 1989. From his first curatorial project, a presentation of performance art in April 1980, and until his death, Olander's curatorial practice was based on theoretically formulated ideas that promoted active participation in culture with traditional and non-traditional mediums. He has been described as a "model museum curator" with some "very novel ideas."

This thesis traces Olander's early background and formal education in order to show the development of his approach to contemporary art within the institutional context of …