Salina Art Center Names New Director

KSAL Staff - Thu 10:38 AM 10/25/2012

Bill North's duties as the Art Center's executive director became effective October 18, 2012.

Following a national search, the Salina Art Center has named a new executive director.

According to the organization, Bill North takes over the position on a permanent basis.

Before coming to the Art Center in early September to serve as interim director, North was the senior curator at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University in Manhattan for seventeen years. His duties as the Art Center's executive director became effective October 18, 2012.

"Bill North's profound commitment to the visual arts in Kansas, his record of scholarship, his deep knowledge of the state and region, and his strong connections to artists across the country made him the ideal candidate to lead the Art Center at this pivotal moment in the organization's history," said board president Brandon Ebert.

"I have long admired the Salina Art Center for its ability to produce highly innovative exhibitions and programs that use contemporary art to engender conversations about challenging issues currently facing the local community," North said. "The Art Center is Salina's window on the world and the world's window on Salina. I am very excited and honored to be given the opportunity to lead an institution about which the community cares so deeply. The level of passion for the Art Center and the arts in Salina is astounding."

North received his BGS and MA in art history from the University of Kansas. Prior to his position at the Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, North held curatorial internships at the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas and the Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University. He succeeds Christopher Cook, Art Center executive director and curator from 2009 to 2012, who resigned this April to become the executive director of LegalArt, an arts service nonprofit organization in Miami, Florida.

Founded in 1978, the Salina Art Center is a non-collecting contemporary art museum and education center located in Salina, Kansas. The Art Center is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. In 2004 the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts named the Art Center as a Warhol Initiative grantee. The Art Center's campus includes over 6,000 square feet of gallery space, an education center, the ninety-seat Art Center Cinema, and the Warehouse, a renovated 6,000 square feet facility housing the Art Center's artist-in-residence program.

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