CCS Bard Appoints Lauren Cornell Artistic Director; Mariano López Seoane to Lead Graduate Program
142April 24, 2025
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, has namedLauren Cornell, who since 2017 has served as director of the graduate program and chief curator, as its inaugural artistic director. Argentinian scholar and curatorMariano López Seoanewill take over as director of the graduate program and will become the ISLAA Fellow in Latin American Art. The latter role is made possible through a partnership with the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), which is providing core support. The changes in leadership arrive as CCS Bard prepares to open its Keith Haring Wing, a major expansion of its library and archives that will significantly increase the center’s research and teaching capacities and render its collections more accessible.
“We are excited to welcome Mariano López Seoane as the new director of the graduate program and ISLAA Fellow in Latin American Art, and for Lauren Cornell to assume the position of artistic director while remaining an important voice among our distinguished faculty,” said CCS Bard executive director Tom Eccles in a statement. “The synergy of the graduate program and Hessel Museum of Art, alongside our library and archives, make the Center for Curatorial Studies a uniquely dynamic art institution. These new positions will enhance and expand our programmatic capacities and core teaching mission.”
As director of the graduate program, Cornell expanded CCS Bard’s curriculum, programming, and faculty and developed partnerships with organizations including ISLAA and the Forge Project. As chief curator, she organized exhibitions for artists including Sky Hopinka, Martine Syms, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Dara Birnbaum, Nil Yalter (with Museum Ludwig, Cologne), Leidy Churchman, Erika Verzutti, and, with Tom Eccles, Ho Tzu Nyen. López Seoane, who joined the CCS Bard faculty in 2023, leads the ISLAA Artist Seminar, an annual research-intensive course culminating in a student-curated exhibition drawing from the ISLAA archives and collections in New York. He previously worked as a curator in Buenos Aires and New York and served as director of the master’s program on gender studies and policies at Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires.