the art of AIDS

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Barbara Hunt McLanahan 

Following a BA(Hons) degree in Visual and Performed Arts and a postgraduate diploma in Gallery and Museum Studies at the Universities of Kent and Manchester respectively, Barbara Hunt McLanahan has worked as a curator and arts administrator for over 20 years on both sides of the Atlantic. She has actively promoted the work of HIV-positive artists, and art about AIDS, particularly in her roles as Exective Director of Visual AIDS (1997-2000) and Artists Space, New York (2000-06). She was formerly Executive Director of Camerawork Gallery + Darkroom, London, UK (1992-96), and is currently the Executive Director of the Judd Foundation. During her time at Visual AIDS, Barbara curated the exhibition 'Bodies of Resistance', which featured the work of Barton Lidice Beneš, Steed Taylor, Albert J. Winn, and Frank Moore (see the adjacent slideshow).

Barbara has been an active volunteer throughout her career, sitting on the board of the African and Asian Visual Artists Archive and the Leisure Services Committee of the Royal National Institute for the Blind in the United Kingdom, as well as participating in Godzilla, a group of Asian American artists and curators, and sitting on the board of ABACA (Arts Benefit All Coalition Alternative) at Satellite Academy. She recently joined the board of the Jerome Foundation in Minneapolis. In 2006 she was named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Artes et des Lettres by the Republic of France.