Aaron Ott Curator of Public Art Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Aaron Ott joined the Albright-Knox in April of 2014 as Curator of Public Art. He spearheads the AK Public Art Initiative, an innovative partnership between the Albright-Knox and Erie County established in 2013. The goal of the initiative is to create spaces of dialogue where diverse communities have the ability to socially engage and cooperatively produce great public art capable of empowering individuals, generating stronger neighborhoods, and establishing Western New York as a critical cultural center. The city of Buffalo joined the partnership in 2014.
The Public Art Initiative began producing and placing works in public spaces in August of 2014. Casey Riordan-Millard’s Shark Girl, one of the first works introduced at Buffalo’s Canalside, became an instant icon of the region. Other works have included the Providence Rhode Island based Tape Art Collective’s Buffalo Caverns at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library; Matthew Hoffman’s You Are Beautiful signs, a body of work produced in association with a partnership between the AK and the Lamar Advertising Company; and Charles Clough’s Hamburg Arena Painting, where the artist was joined by over 170 participants at Hilbert College to create a community mural. The Initiative continues to form crucial partnerships that help us present ground-breaking works, like Jaume Plensa’s Silent Poets, installed at Canalside and Shayne Dark’s sprawling exhibition Natural Conditions at the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens, both installed in May of 2015. Kaarina Kaikkonen’s We Share A Dream at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport is the latest work created through the Initiative.
Before joining the Albright-Knox, Ott worked as an independent curator on such projects as Inside the Outside at the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) in Chicago (January 26–May 4, 2014) and a consultant on projects including Social Paper at Columbia College Chicago (February 10–April 15, 2014) and Inventory_The EAM Collection at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois (September 21, 2013–January 5, 2014). He also served as the Interim Exhibitions Director at HPAC, where he curated the exhibition Ground Floor (August 19–November 11, 2012). As part of the Chicago Artists Coalition’s HATCH Projects, he worked on the exhibition A Prophet is Not a Fortune Teller (May 2–May 22, 2014). Formerly, Ott was a Curator of the Collection at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Curator at the Elmhurst Art Museum, and served as the Director of the David Weinberg Gallery in Chicago. He received his master’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Cincinnati.
Ott’s curatorial philosophy is grounded in the notion that the shared landscape of our lives is abundant with the opportunity to create, experience, and talk about notions of beauty, culture, originality, and innovation. He is committed to art that is generous in spirit, conceptually affirmative, and participatory in format. A native of Cincinnati, Ott and his family have relocated to Western New York.
