NEWS

Paul Duldig, Chair of Linden New Art, and the Linden board have announced the appointment of Vincent Alessi as the gallery’s new Director.

“I am excited and honoured to be the next Director of Linden New Art and continuing the work of previous director Melinda Martin,” says Alessi. “I’m looking forward to working with the talented Linden team to develop new bold and engaging exhibitions, inclusive public programs and connecting with our communities. Linden’s clear aims to support artists, particularly mid-career artists, in developing brave new work aligns with my own aspirations, and I look forward to cementing Linden’s reputation as an artist-first institution.”

Linden’s Chairperson, Paul Duldig says “The Linden board is delighted that Vincent will be joining us as Director. He is clearly inspired by and dedicated to our mission of showing brave new work by mid-career artists. His extensive curatorial experience and academic background will be key in his leadership of Linden in this exciting new chapter.”

Vincent Alessi has been involved in the arts and tertiary sectors as a director, curator and academic for over 18 years. From 2006-2014 he was the Artistic Director of LUMA (La Trobe University Museum of Art) before taking up the position of Curatorial Manager at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne. He has curated exhibitions both nationally and internationally on artists as diverse as Mike Brown, Philip Hunter, Brook Andrew, Julie Rrap and Bernard Boles and on topics varying from abstractionism in Australian landscape painting to notions of place and identity in contemporary practice. He has written on the works of Reko Rennie, Ash Keating, Juan Ford, Darren Wardle, Sarah Amos, Brook Andrew, Julie Rrap, and The Ryan Sisters amongst others. In 2019, with colleagues Ry Haskings and Narelle Desmond, he founded the not-for-profit contemporary art space Conners Conners in Fitzroy, Melbourne.

Vincent is also a trained art historian, His research interests include the life and work of Vincent van Gogh, mid-late 19th-Century European art, 19th-Century popular graphic illustration and Australian contemporary visual art and curatorial practice. In 2020 he published the book Popular art and the avant-garde: Vincent van Gogh's collection of newspaper and magazine prints.

Vincent takes up the directorship on October 19, 2022.

Image: Vincent Alessi at Linden New Art, 2022. Photograph: Liam James