Bio

Anastasia James is currently Director of Galleries & Public Art for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust where she oversees six public art galleries, all public art initiatives, and related programming in downtown Pittsburgh’s 14-block Cultural District. She currently serves on advisory committees for the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, Pittsburgh International Airport, as well as the co-chair of a working group on arts and culture for the Allegheny Conference.

A nationally recognized arts leader, with 18 years of professional experience, James was formerly Deputy Director of Art & Education at the Bechtler Museum where she led the Curatorial, Education, Community Engagement, and Programming teams in addition to acting as the museum’s Chief Curator. Previously James held roles as Founding Curator at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art where she worked closely with George Lucas on the strategic development and strengthening of his collection and Curator of Exhibitions & Programs at SUNY New Paltz where she also held a faculty role in the Art History Department.

As a scholar, James is an expert in Global postwar and contemporary art 1945–present with specific expertise in the work of Andy Warhol. She is the editor of three monographs exploring various aspects of Warhol’s life and work through the focal point of his primary collaborators. Her curatorial practice is notable for her longstanding engagement with new and emerging media and championing of diverse and underrepresented voices and has been profiled widely in periodicals such as The New York Times, Artforum, ArtNews, Art in America, LA Times, T Magazine, Vogue, and The New Yorker. In 2012, James received an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies where her thesis focused on the work of American artist, Ray Johnson and tenets of democracy in progressive American arts education.