Stephen Snoddy
Encyclopedia
Stephen Snoddy is a Curator and Gallery Director. Stephen Snoddy was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1959 and he trained as a painter at Belfast College of Art where he graduated in 1983 with an MA in Fine Art.
He moved to England in 1986 and graduated with a Postgraduate Diploma
in Art Gallery & Museum Studies from Manchester University in 1987 and then moved to Bristol
to become Exhibitions Organiser at Arnolfini Gallery. He worked from 1987–91 on an exhibition programme that included solo exhibitions by Richard Long
, Giuseppe Penone, Gillian Ayres
, Rachel Whiteread
, Vong Phaophanit
, Jannis Kounellis: Drawings, Jack B. Yeats: The Late Works (which toured to the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Haags Gemeentemuseum) and the first solo exhibition of Juan Munoz
in the UK.
In 1991, he became Exhibitions Director of Cornerhouse
, Manchester
, where he and other city curators established the Manchester City Consortium when the Hayward Gallery
brought the British Art Show
4 to the city in 1995. He also organised such shows as the first John Baldessari
European Retrospective toured to the Serpentine Gallery, London and onwards onto a European tour; a Bruce McLean
film commission; 'Sublime: Manchester Music and Design';Edward Allington
; Jochen Gerz; Annette Messager: Telling Tales'; Rita Donagh Retrospective; Paul Seawright: Sectarian Murders and 'Unveiled: Possibilities in Abstract Painting' exhibitions.
In 1996, he moved to become Director of Southampton City Art Gallery
, where he and current Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
director Godfrey Worsdale organised the 1998 Chris Ofili solo exhibition which helped win Chris Ofili
the 1998 Turner Prize
, and an exchange of collections with the Bilbao Museum of Fine Art, to coincide with the opening of the new Frank Gehry
-designed Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
. Purchases for the collection included works by John Hoyland
, Fiona Rea, Chris Ofili
, Douglas Gordon
and Julian Opie
.
In the spring of 1998, he moved to Milton Keynes
to direct the construction of a brand new gallery as part of the £30 million Theatre and Gallery complex. Milton Keynes Gallery (MK G) opened on 8 October 1999 with ‘The Rudimentary Pictures’, an exhibition of 33 new works by Gilbert & George which attracted over 25,000 visitors. There were also exhibitions of Richard Hamilton
, Sigmar Polke, Andy Warhol, Juergen Teller, Noble & Webster, Richard Wright, Abigail Lane, 'Air Guitar: Contemporary Art and Rock Music' and 'The Temple of Bacchus', (Sarah Lucas with Colin Lowe and Roddy Thompson). In October 2003 at the first Frieze Art Fair in Regent Park, London MK G had a stand which remains the only time a publicly funded art gallery in the UK has had a stand at the FAF.
In December 2003, Snoddy became Director of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
, Gateshead
, where he made organisational and structural changes, refreshed the programme and engaged with artists of the region before being suspended and then resigning in November 2004, after only 11 months in post. He was responsible for commissioning Bob and Roberta Smith to create an exhibition in response to the Labour Party Spring Conference of 2004 at the neighbouring Sage, Gateshead, as well as programming an Edward Kienholz
retrospective and the first exhibition of the Italian artist Carol Rama in the UK.
In January 2005, he began to work on freelance projects, acted as consultant to various organisations, lectured at Manchester Metropolitan University
and continued to be on the VAGA Executive Board. He was also appointed in March 2005 as Director of the inaugural Contemporary Art Norwich (CAN05), a multi venued exhibition project, (incorporating the open exhibition EAST) in the city of Norwich during the Summer of 2005.
In May 2005, he was appointed as Director of The New Art Gallery, Walsall
, where he has reviewed policies, restructured the organisation, enabled an acquisitions budget for contemporary art, opened a new 4th floor gallery, awarded the cafe franchise to Costa Coffee, expanded the Library & Archive and increased visitor figures annually since 2007: in 2009 they reached just over 200,000 - approaching the level of 237,000 reached under founding director Peter Jenkinson. Exhibitions have included 'Starstruck: Contemporary Art and Celebrity'; Christopher Le Brun retrospective; Stuart Whipps - Longbridge Project; Richard Billingham: The Black Country; Jane & Louise Wilson; John Davies: A British Landscape; 'Reimagining Asia', John Pickering, Antoinette Haechler, Frank Sidney Smith and 'The Life of the Mind', curated by Bob and Roberta Smith. The New Art Gallery was also one of the 12 launch venues for Artists' Rooms, (Anthony d'Offay's gift/sale of contemporary art to the nation) and exhibited 52 early Andy Warhol
drawings.
In 2006, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Previously he has been a Director of The New Contemporaries
and was on the Visual Arts Committee of the British Council
for 10 years and taught at numerous art colleges as a visiting lecturer and was on the working committee for the National Policy for Collecting Contemporary Art and the visual arts and Turning Point ACE West Midlands area group.
In 2007, along with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham who joined together to become the West Midlands Consortium they are one of 5 consortiums in the UK to be awarded the £1 million Art Fund International award to purchase international contemporary art over the next 5 years, under the theme of the Metropolis - an interim exhibition 'Metropolis' of acquisitions to date was launched in the Autumn of 2010. In 2009 he was a judge for the National Portrait Prize, Taylor Wessing Photography Portrait Prize which toured to The New Art Gallery, Walsall in 2010.
The New Art Gallery, Walsall celebrated its 10th Birthday in February 2010, with an exhibition called 'Party' that mixed historic, modern and contemporary art together.
In 2009, he was the Curator for the 'Art of Ideas' in Birmingham and he appeared on Antony Gormley’s, One & Other 4th Plinth project at Trafalgar Square in August 2009 where he collaborated with Bob and Roberta Smith on realising an art work for the 4th Plinth.
He is currently a Patron of Walsall College, a Board member of Lichfield Festival, 'Pestival'
and 'The Campaign for Drawing', and was on the Selection Committee for 'Artists Taking the Lead' in the North West of England and is a curatorial advisor working on Anthony McCall's 'Projected Columns' for Wirral Waters.
He has been appointed as Artistic Director of Look11, Liverpool International Festival of Photography and will be assisted by Daniel Cutmore, who has been appointed to the role of Festival Manager. Photography as a ‘call to action’ will be the central theme of Look11, the first photography festival to be staged in Liverpool, and is set within the context of Liverpool’s Year of Social Justice and City of Radicals in 2011. Events will take place at galleries and exhibition spaces across Liverpool and will showcase significant bodies of work by emerging and established photographers from both home and abroad and archive material. Look11 will launch with a three-day event on 13 May 2011 featuring exhibition openings, artists’ talks, workshops and will play host to the 3rd National Photography Symposium at The Bluecoat. Check out www.look2011.co.uk
In 2011, at the invitation of the British Council, he visited Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories to advise on the development of a potential new Palestinian Museum of Art and on a future collections and programme strategy.
He moved to England in 1986 and graduated with a Postgraduate Diploma
Postgraduate diploma
A postgraduate diploma is a postgraduate qualification awarded typically after a bachelor's degree. It can be contrasted with a graduate diploma...
in Art Gallery & Museum Studies from Manchester University in 1987 and then moved to Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
to become Exhibitions Organiser at Arnolfini Gallery. He worked from 1987–91 on an exhibition programme that included solo exhibitions by Richard Long
Richard Long
-English political figures:*Richard Long , Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Henry VIII; knighted in 1537; MP for Southwark...
, Giuseppe Penone, Gillian Ayres
Gillian Ayres
Gillian Ayres, CBE is an English painter.-Early life and career:Ayres was born on 3 February 1930 in Barnes, London, the youngest of three sisters. Ayres started school when she was six. Her parents, a prosperous couple, sent her to Ibstock, a progressive school in Roehampton run on Fröbel...
, Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread, CBE is an English artist, best known for her sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize....
, Vong Phaophanit
Vong Phaophanit
Vong Phaophanit is an artist based in London. Born, in Savannakhet, Laos in 1961, Vong Phaophanit was educated in Paris and later studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Aix en Provence, France. He met and married Claire Oboussier while they were both still students, moved to the UK in 1985 and became...
, Jannis Kounellis: Drawings, Jack B. Yeats: The Late Works (which toured to the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Haags Gemeentemuseum) and the first solo exhibition of Juan Munoz
Juan Muñoz
Juan Muñoz was a Spanish sculptor, working primarily in paper maché, resin and bronze. He was also interested in the auditory arts and created compositions for the radio. He was a self-described "storyteller"...
in the UK.
In 1991, he became Exhibitions Director of Cornerhouse
Cornerhouse
Cornerhouse is a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts located very close to Oxford Road Station, on Oxford Street in Manchester, England...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, where he and other city curators established the Manchester City Consortium when the Hayward Gallery
Hayward Gallery
The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre, part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings and also the Royal National Theatre and British Film Institute...
brought the British Art Show
British Art Show
The British Art Show is a major survey exhibition organised every five years to showcase contemporary British Art. The current exhibition in the series, referred to as BAS6, is touring a number of major cities within England in 2005 and 2006. Each time it is organised, the show tours to three UK...
4 to the city in 1995. He also organised such shows as the first John Baldessari
John Baldessari
John Anthony Baldessari is an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lives and works in Santa Monica and Venice, California...
European Retrospective toured to the Serpentine Gallery, London and onwards onto a European tour; a Bruce McLean
Bruce McLean
Bruce McLean is a Scottish performance artist and painter.McLean was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1961 to 1963, and at St Martin's School of Art, London,from 1963 to 1966...
film commission; 'Sublime: Manchester Music and Design';Edward Allington
Edward Allington
Edward Allington is an English artist and sculptor.He studied at Lancaster College of Art 1968–71, the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London 1971–74 and the Royal College of Art 1983–84.He won the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Prize in 1989, was Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at...
; Jochen Gerz; Annette Messager: Telling Tales'; Rita Donagh Retrospective; Paul Seawright: Sectarian Murders and 'Unveiled: Possibilities in Abstract Painting' exhibitions.
In 1996, he moved to become Director of Southampton City Art Gallery
Southampton City Art Gallery
The Southampton City Art Gallery is an art gallery in Southampton, southern England. It is located in the Civic Centre on Commercial Road.The gallery's art collection covers six centuries of European art history, with over 3,500 works. It is housed in an example of 1930s municipal architecture...
, where he and current Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is an international centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne alongside the Gateshead Millennium Bridge in Gateshead, North East England, United Kingdom...
director Godfrey Worsdale organised the 1998 Chris Ofili solo exhibition which helped win Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
the 1998 Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
, and an exchange of collections with the Bilbao Museum of Fine Art, to coincide with the opening of the new Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...
-designed Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, built by Ferrovial, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. It is built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Atlantic Coast. The...
. Purchases for the collection included works by John Hoyland
John Hoyland
John Hoyland RA was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters.-Life:...
, Fiona Rea, Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
, Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon is a Scottish artist; he won the Turner Prize in 1996 and the following year he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale...
and Julian Opie
Julian Opie
Julian Opie is a visual artist, and one of the New British Sculpture movement.-Life and work:Julian Opie was raised in Oxford, England, where he attended the Dragon School and Magdalen College School. He attended Goldsmith's School of Art in London from 1979-82...
.
In the spring of 1998, he moved to Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes , sometimes abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, in the south east of England, about north-west of London. It is the administrative centre of the Borough of Milton Keynes...
to direct the construction of a brand new gallery as part of the £30 million Theatre and Gallery complex. Milton Keynes Gallery (MK G) opened on 8 October 1999 with ‘The Rudimentary Pictures’, an exhibition of 33 new works by Gilbert & George which attracted over 25,000 visitors. There were also exhibitions of Richard Hamilton
Richard Hamilton (artist)
Richard William Hamilton, CH was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the...
, Sigmar Polke, Andy Warhol, Juergen Teller, Noble & Webster, Richard Wright, Abigail Lane, 'Air Guitar: Contemporary Art and Rock Music' and 'The Temple of Bacchus', (Sarah Lucas with Colin Lowe and Roddy Thompson). In October 2003 at the first Frieze Art Fair in Regent Park, London MK G had a stand which remains the only time a publicly funded art gallery in the UK has had a stand at the FAF.
In December 2003, Snoddy became Director of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is an international centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne alongside the Gateshead Millennium Bridge in Gateshead, North East England, United Kingdom...
, Gateshead
Gateshead
Gateshead is a town in Tyne and Wear, England and is the main settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. Historically a part of County Durham, it lies on the southern bank of the River Tyne opposite Newcastle upon Tyne and together they form the urban core of Tyneside...
, where he made organisational and structural changes, refreshed the programme and engaged with artists of the region before being suspended and then resigning in November 2004, after only 11 months in post. He was responsible for commissioning Bob and Roberta Smith to create an exhibition in response to the Labour Party Spring Conference of 2004 at the neighbouring Sage, Gateshead, as well as programming an Edward Kienholz
Edward Kienholz
Edward Kienholz was an American installation artist whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he assembled much of his artwork in close collaboration with his artistic partner and wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz...
retrospective and the first exhibition of the Italian artist Carol Rama in the UK.
In January 2005, he began to work on freelance projects, acted as consultant to various organisations, lectured at Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Metropolitan University is a university in North West England. Its headquarters and central campus is in the city of Manchester, but there are outlying facilities in the county of Cheshire. It is the third largest university in the United Kingdom in terms of student numbers, behind the...
and continued to be on the VAGA Executive Board. He was also appointed in March 2005 as Director of the inaugural Contemporary Art Norwich (CAN05), a multi venued exhibition project, (incorporating the open exhibition EAST) in the city of Norwich during the Summer of 2005.
In May 2005, he was appointed as Director of The New Art Gallery, Walsall
Walsall
Walsall is a large industrial town in the West Midlands of England. It is located northwest of Birmingham and east of Wolverhampton. Historically a part of Staffordshire, Walsall is a component area of the West Midlands conurbation and part of the Black Country.Walsall is the administrative...
, where he has reviewed policies, restructured the organisation, enabled an acquisitions budget for contemporary art, opened a new 4th floor gallery, awarded the cafe franchise to Costa Coffee, expanded the Library & Archive and increased visitor figures annually since 2007: in 2009 they reached just over 200,000 - approaching the level of 237,000 reached under founding director Peter Jenkinson. Exhibitions have included 'Starstruck: Contemporary Art and Celebrity'; Christopher Le Brun retrospective; Stuart Whipps - Longbridge Project; Richard Billingham: The Black Country; Jane & Louise Wilson; John Davies: A British Landscape; 'Reimagining Asia', John Pickering, Antoinette Haechler, Frank Sidney Smith and 'The Life of the Mind', curated by Bob and Roberta Smith. The New Art Gallery was also one of the 12 launch venues for Artists' Rooms, (Anthony d'Offay's gift/sale of contemporary art to the nation) and exhibited 52 early Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
drawings.
In 2006, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Previously he has been a Director of The New Contemporaries
New Contemporaries
New Contemporaries is an organisation that works to support emerging artists at the beginning of their careers by introducing them to the visual arts sector and to the public through a variety of platforms, including an annual exhibition...
and was on the Visual Arts Committee of the British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
for 10 years and taught at numerous art colleges as a visiting lecturer and was on the working committee for the National Policy for Collecting Contemporary Art and the visual arts and Turning Point ACE West Midlands area group.
In 2007, along with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham who joined together to become the West Midlands Consortium they are one of 5 consortiums in the UK to be awarded the £1 million Art Fund International award to purchase international contemporary art over the next 5 years, under the theme of the Metropolis - an interim exhibition 'Metropolis' of acquisitions to date was launched in the Autumn of 2010. In 2009 he was a judge for the National Portrait Prize, Taylor Wessing Photography Portrait Prize which toured to The New Art Gallery, Walsall in 2010.
The New Art Gallery, Walsall celebrated its 10th Birthday in February 2010, with an exhibition called 'Party' that mixed historic, modern and contemporary art together.
In 2009, he was the Curator for the 'Art of Ideas' in Birmingham and he appeared on Antony Gormley’s, One & Other 4th Plinth project at Trafalgar Square in August 2009 where he collaborated with Bob and Roberta Smith on realising an art work for the 4th Plinth.
He is currently a Patron of Walsall College, a Board member of Lichfield Festival, 'Pestival'
Pestival
Pestival is an international arts festival dedicated to ‘insects in the arts and the art of being an insect'. Pestival won the 2010 Observer Ethical Award in Conservation, and currently has a three year residency at ZSL London Zoo....
and 'The Campaign for Drawing', and was on the Selection Committee for 'Artists Taking the Lead' in the North West of England and is a curatorial advisor working on Anthony McCall's 'Projected Columns' for Wirral Waters.
He has been appointed as Artistic Director of Look11, Liverpool International Festival of Photography and will be assisted by Daniel Cutmore, who has been appointed to the role of Festival Manager. Photography as a ‘call to action’ will be the central theme of Look11, the first photography festival to be staged in Liverpool, and is set within the context of Liverpool’s Year of Social Justice and City of Radicals in 2011. Events will take place at galleries and exhibition spaces across Liverpool and will showcase significant bodies of work by emerging and established photographers from both home and abroad and archive material. Look11 will launch with a three-day event on 13 May 2011 featuring exhibition openings, artists’ talks, workshops and will play host to the 3rd National Photography Symposium at The Bluecoat. Check out www.look2011.co.uk
In 2011, at the invitation of the British Council, he visited Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories to advise on the development of a potential new Palestinian Museum of Art and on a future collections and programme strategy.