Elizabeth Chodos

Biography

Elizabeth Chodos is the director of the Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon. She joined the university in fall 2017 from Ox-Bow, school of art and artists’ residency (Saugatuck, Michigan), where she most recently served as executive and creative director. To date, Chodos has focused her career on promoting the work of contemporary artists through residencies, higher education, exhibitions and public programming, and she hopes to continue that at ICA Pittsburgh.

“I believe deeply that art has the power to transform and that contemporary art offers society a vehicle to participate directly in social change,” she said. “ICA Pittsburgh has a history of blending rigorous exhibition practices with higher education, and it is an honor to join the ICA and continue this work.”

Since it first opened in 2000 as the Miller Gallery on Carnegie Mellon's campus, the rejuvenated ICA Pittsburgh has evolved from regionally focused exhibitions to curating and presenting challenging contemporary work by national and international artists. The ICA’s vision and focus was expanded from a conventional environment exhibiting work almost exclusively by external artists into a combined gallery, teaching and research space that creates targeted projects linked directly to the university’s curricular and creative/research interests. Most recently, the ICA has updated its direction to better reflect its benefits as an asset for the university and to be more accessible for the greater Pittsburgh area.

Chodos said leading the ICA Pittsburgh into the future particularly appeals to her because of Carnegie Mellon’s reputation as a renowned research institution. The combination of a rich research environment and extensive arts programs is a setting, she said, that creates connections across fields and demonstrates how “arts, politics, science and technology intertwine and overlap.” She hopes to offer exhibitions and related public programming, publications and interactive web-based platforms that spark conversation about our society and topical issues that matter locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

She is dedicated to making ICA Pittsburgh “open to all,” helping to ensure that exhibitions and programming appeal to a diverse group of individuals who want to experience contemporary art that makes a statement about and truly affects our lives in today’s campus environment, community and the world.

She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., and earned her bachelor’s degree in art history and creative writing. She earned her master’s degree in a dual course of study: art history, theory and criticism, and arts administration. She also completed five internships during her undergraduate studies. Chodos started her career at Threewalls in Chicago, where she began as director of public programs and then served as executive director before becoming a board member. She co-founded Hand in Glove in 2011; it is a “siteless national organization,” which served as a gathering point by and for practitioners in the field of alternative art spaces, projects and organizations. She also co-founded and served as a board member for Common Field, a national alliance of and advocacy group for artist-centered visual arts platforms and their producers.

A board member for Alliance of Artists’ Communities, Chodos also has curated numerous exhibitions across the country, has served as a panelist and moderator for arts-related conferences, and is a contributor to arts publications.