Wexner Center for the Arts Announces the Departure of Bill Horrigan

After 34 years at the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, Bill Horrigan has retired from his position as curator at large. He held several curatorial roles through his tenure and played a leading part in the center’s programming, even before it opened to the public in November 1989. 

Horrigan was the center’s founding media arts director. Allied with the other founding curators—Sarah Rogers, Claudia Gould, and William Cook—and supported by inaugural Executive Director Robert Stearns, Horrigan had a wide berth to curate public screenings representing virtually all filmic traditions and genres, often with the filmmakers in attendance. 

Horrigan’s department drew further distinction through its creative administration of the Art & Technology Studio (now known as the Film/Video Studio). To this day, the facility fills a unique role by providing professional production support for local, national, and international artists working in moving image forms.

As early as 1989, Horrigan began to curate gallery-based projects with filmmakers, but equally with painters, photographers, and sculptors. He was appointed by then-Director Sherri Geldin as curator at large in 2010. In his varied capacities, Horrigan wrote dozens of texts related to the Wex’s activities, while simultaneously contributing to other renowned arts-related publications and initiatives.

Horrigan’s thoughtful, adventurous approach to his work brought international attention to the institution. During his time at the Wex, Horrigan’s most notable affiliation was with French artist Chris Marker, a global icon of the cinematic essay. The projects Marker developed with Horrigan—Silent Movie (1995) and Staring Back (2007)—have been seen in dozens of venues internationally and continue to inform scholarship on the artist.

Horrigan also forged important relationships with other established and then-emerging artists, helping to develop projects with Sadie Benning, Mark Dion, Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon, Annie Leibovitz, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Josiah McElheny,  Adi Nes, Shirin Neshat, Catherine Opie, Paper Tiger Television, Julia Scher, and John Waters, among many others.

Horrigan received a Ph.D. in film from Northwestern University. Prior to his tenure at the Wex, he worked at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. His many freelance projects include 1989's Video Against AIDS, co-curated with John Greyson. He was also on the curatorial advisory team for the 2008 Whitney Biennial.

In celebration of Horrigan’s tremendous legacy, the Wexner Center for the Arts and The Ohio State University Libraries are developing the William (Bill) Horrigan Collection, which will comprise books, ephemera, photographs, correspondence, and other materials for future researchers. 

“It has been a tremendous honor to work alongside Bill Horrigan," says Head of Exhibitions Kelly Kivland. "He possesses one of the most notable reputations in the field. His impact is felt throughout every corner of the Wex—from the Film/Video Studio to the galleries—as well as in those inspired by his emboldened approach to always putting the creative voice first. I am thrilled that the Wex, together with Ohio State University Libraries, will further his enduring legacy through establishment of the Bill Horrigan Collection.”

“As a worker within a service organization, I need to acknowledge and reciprocate the sentiments I've received from the legion of current and past stellar coworkers and guests, many whose labors we supported over the years,” Horrigan says. “It's those sentiments, which fundamentally are all about witnessing how our institutional efforts continue to advance creative and committed vocations, that mean the most to me. It's nothing other than what Arendt valued as 'the ethical imperative'—the human call to help and to be helped.”