Alistair Hudson

© Alistair Hudson Alistair Hudson iis the Scientific-Artistic Chairman of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe since April 1, 2023. He succeeds Peter Weibel, who had headed the institution since 1999.
Hudson is a curator and museum director with broad-ranging international experience. He combines contemporary curatorial expertise with a profound knowledge of the relationship between art, technology and society. From 2018 to 2022 he served as director of two museums in Manchester: the Manchester Art Gallery and The Whitworth. The latter is the art museum of the University of Manchester, where he was also Professor of Useful Art.
In 1994, after completing his studies in art history and fine art, he went to work for the prestigious Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London. From 2000 he served as curator of public projects for the Government Art Collection. From 2004 he was vice director of Grizedale Arts, a ground-breaking art institution and international artists residency programme operating from a farm in England’s Lake District. From 2014 he served as director of the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, where he radically re-invented the museum, working with the residents of the city to give it social purpose.
Alistair Hudson’s concept of a »useful museum« envisions artistic and cultural institutions as centres of social responsibility and transformation. Together with the artist Tania Bruguera he heads the international network Asociación de Arte Útil.