Howard Oransky

I am Director of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery operated by the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

My first book was Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta. This was the catalog for the exhibition I co-curated with Lynn Lukkas. The book was co-published by the Katherine E. Nash Gallery and the University of California Press in September 2015. The exhibition premiered at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery and traveled to the NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; the Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden; the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; and the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris. The book includes the first complete filmography of all the artist's 104 films written by Laura Wertheim Joseph, as well as essays by Lynn Lukkas, Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, Howard Oransky, John Perreault, Michael Rush, and Rachel Weiss, and received a First Place award for Best Art Museum Catalog Design from the American Alliance of Museums.

In September 2022 the Katherine E. Nash Gallery and the University of California Press co-published A Picture Gallery of the Soul. This was the catalog for the exhibition I co-curated with Herman J. Milligan, Jr. The exhibition featured the work of 100+ Black American artists from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries who use the photographic medium in their practice. The book includes an image, artist biography, and artist statement for each of the artists in the exhibition, as well as essays by Cheryl Finley, Herman J. Milligan, Jr., crystal am nelson, Howard Oransky, Seph Rodney, and Deborah Willis. Within the first week of its publication the book was ranked as the #1 New Release in Art History by Amazon.

In January 2023 the Katherine E. Nash Gallery published A Tender Spirit, A Vital Form: Arlene Burke-Morgan and Clarence Morgan, the catalog of the exhibition I curated, with distribution by the University of Minnesota Press. The book includes 100 full-page images of drawings, paintings, and sculptures by the Black American artist couple Arlene Burke-Morgan and Clarence Morgan, as well as essays by Christine Baeumler, Robert Cozzolino, Tia-Simone Gardner, Bill Gaskins, Nyeema Morgan, and Howard Oransky.

In January 2024 the Katherine E. Nash Gallery will publish Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers, the catalog of the exhibition I am curating with Brenda J. Child and Christopher Pexa, with distribution by the University of Minnesota Press. The exhibition features the work of 29 Native American artists whose practice includes the painting medium. The book includes several images, an artist biography, and an artist statement for each of the artists in the exhibition, as well as essays by Brenda J. Child, Patricia Marroquin Norby, Christopher Pexa, Susan Mona Power, and Diane Wilson.