Carnegie Museum of Art Appoints John Tain as Curatorial Affairs Director

John Tain has been named director of curatorial affairs at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. In this position, he will lead the museum’s curatorial team and collaborate closely with museum director Eric Crosby to guide the institution’s artistic vision and interpret its collection.

Tain previously spent ten years as a curator of modern and contemporary collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles before moving to Asia Art Archive (AAA), where he served as head of research from 2017 to 2023. At AAA, he oversaw projects such as MAHASSA (2019–20), developed with the Dhaka Art Summit and Cornell University’s Institute for Comparative Modernities; the exhibition Crafting Communities (2020); the Art Schools of Asia seminar and symposium series (2021–22); and AAA’s participation in documenta fifteen (2022). He was the curator of the 2024 edition of the Lahore Biennale. Tain also contributes as co-editor of the Intersecting Modernisms initiative, sits on the council of Asia Forum, and advises both the Hauser & Wirth Institute and Flow of History: Southeast Asian Women Artists.

He is set to begin his new post on 8 December.

Photo: Nad E. Aly