Gilane Tawadros

Biography

Curator and writer Gilane Tawadros is the Director of the Whitechapel Gallery (2022–present). Previously, she was the Chief Executive of DACS, a not-for-profit visual artists’ rights management organisation (2009–2022) and the founding Director of the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) in London (1994–2005).

Her practice examines issues of race, difference and globalisation in contemporary art with a particular focus on artistic practice as a way of seeing and understanding the world. She has written extensively on the work of artists Sonia Boyce, Zineb Sedira, Mona Hatoum, Lubaina Himid, Ingrid Pollard and Claudette Johnson amongst others.

Tawadros has curated numerous exhibitions, including Shooting Performance: Edward Woodman and British Art of the 1980s and 1990s, The Roberts Institute of Art, London (2017); Raul Ortega Ayala: Extra-Extra, The Kowalsky Gallery, London (2010); Transmission Interrupted, Modern Art Oxford (2009); Veil, which opened at New Art Gallery Walsall, UK (2003) and travelled to Bluecoat Art Gallery & Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool (2003); Modern Art Oxford (2003–2004) and Kulturhuset Stockholm (2004); and Fault Lines: Contemporary African Art and Shifting Landscapes, 50th Venice Biennale (2003).

Her publications include The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Difference (Bloomsbury, 2021); The New Economy of Art: Value, Patronage and Emerging Business Models in Contemporary Visual Art (DACS & Artquest, 2014); Life Is More Important Than Art (Ostrich, 2007); and Changing States: Contemporary Art and Ideas in an Era of Globalisation (Iniva, 2004).

Tawadros was the first art historian to be appointed to the Blanche, Edith and Irving Laurie Chair in Women’s Studies, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, USA. She is Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation, Trustee of the Stuart Croft Foundation and Member of the Advisory Committee for the Yale Center for British Art.

She pursued postgraduate research in human rights at Birkbeck College, University of London (2008–2009).

Born in 1965 in Cairo, Tawadros lives and works in London.