Drew Thompson

Associate Professor of Africana and Historical Studies; Associate Professor, Bard Graduate Center

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Africana Studies, Experimental Humanities, Global and International Studies, Historical Studies, Human Rights

Biography: Drew Thompson is a historian of art and visual culture and an independent curator. His areas of interests include African and African American visual and material culture, Black internationalist movements, and histories of photography. Recent exhibitions include Benjamin Wigfall and Communications Village at The Dorsky Museum of Art and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and SIGHTLINES at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery. He is the author of the monograph Filtering Histories: The Photographic Bureaucracy in Mozambique, 1960 to Recent Times, and he is at work on a book provisionally titled Coloring Black Surveillance through Polaroids: The Poetics of Black Solidarity and Sociality.

His writings on modern and contemporary art and photography have appeared in Africa Is A Country, FOAM Magazine, the White Review, Source Magazine and in edited volumes published by The Art Institute of Chicago, The Image Centre, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Walther Collection, David Zwirner Books, and HANGAR—Centro de Investigação Artistica. With the aim of enhancing public access and engagement with the arts and humanities, he has served in an advisory capacity for several arts and non-profit organizations including the Artist Estate of Benjamin Wigfall, Mellon Mays Graduate Initiatives Program, Watson Foundation, Brooklyn Museum, and CONTACT Photography Festival.
Phone: 845-758-6822
Email: dthompso@bard.edu
Location: Hopson
Office: 303