SITE Santa Fe announced today the appointment of Charles A. Stainback as its new executive director. Stainback is the Dayton Director of the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery and Professor of Liberal Studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Stainback succeeds Louis Grachos, who was named director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, in January 2003, and who led SITE Santa Fe to national and international prominence. Stainback's appointment by the Board of Directors of SITE Santa Fe is effective on September 1, 2003. The appointment was announced today by Bobbie Foshay-Miller, President of SITE Santa Fe's Board of Directors."The Board of Directors is very pleased that Charlie Stainback will be the next executive director of SITE Santa Fe," Foshay-Miller said in her announcement. "Charlie's many years of experience as a museum director and curator make him the perfect choice to lead SITE Santa Fe at this stage in its growth. Everyone will enjoy his team spirit, his great sense of humor, and his ingratiating manner. We look forward to working with Charlie to maintain SITE Santa Fe's extraordinary programs and to implement the many new exciting ideas he suggests."

"To say I was thrilled to be chosen as SITE Santa Fe's next director is an understatement. I am honored to be able to take on the challenge of this important institution and hope I can build upon the rich history that has made SITE one of this country's premier spaces for contemporary art," Stainback said.

Stainback joined Skidmore in 1997, and during his tenure he oversaw the conception, design, and construction of a new interdisciplinary arts facility -- The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery. The Tang, which opened in October 2000, was designed by the renowned Albuquerque-based architect Antoine Predock.

For the opening of the Tang Museum, Stainback curated S.O.S.: Scenes of Sounds, a multimedia, interdisciplinary exhibition that included everything from a Chatty Cathy doll to the 25 sounds patented by the U.S. Patent Office to artworks by a wide range of artists including Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman, Rebecca Horn, Ann Hamilton, and Martin Kersels. Since its opening, the Tang has risen to national attention for its innovative programs and stunningly beautiful publications. Over the past two and a half years, the Tang has shown the work of over 200 contemporary artists and mounted exhibitions that have ranged from Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution to Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress.

Recently, Stainback curated the first U.S. presentation of the Sonnabend Collection -- From Pop to Now: Selections from the Sonnabend Collection -- which was shown at the Tang as well as the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. As Holland Cotter noted in his review of the exhibition for The New York Times, "Under Mr. Stainback [the Tang] has a lively, forward-looking exhibition program.... At the same time... it has its eye on history and how that works. In such an environment, the Sonnabend collection is right at home."

Previously, Stainback was the director of exhibitions for the International Center of Photography in New York City. He has also served as the founding director of the Burden Gallery, Aperture Foundation, New York, NY; and assistant director of The Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA. Stainback holds a B.F.A from the Kansas City Art Institute, and a M.F.A from the State University of New York at Buffalo/Visual Studies Workshop.

Stainback has been involved in the arts as a practitioner, educator, and curator for more than two decades. Over the last 10 years, he has published several books and curated numerous exhibitions on some of the most challenging and important work by contemporary artists including Vik Muniz: Seeing is Believing (1998), David Levinthal: Works from 1975-1996 (1997), Special Collections: The Photographic Order from Pop to Now (1993-1994), Jeff Wolin: Written on Memory (1991), The Anonymous Other: Photographic Installations by Christian Boltanski, Barbara Bloom and Alfredo Jaar (1991), Bruce Charlesworth: Private Enemy/Public Eye (1988), and Portrayals (1987). In 1995 he co-curated Along the Frontier: Video Installations by Ann Hamilton, Bruce Nauman, Francesc Torres and Bill Viola, a special exhibition that toured Russia and Eastern Europe. Among Stainback's current projects are a mid-career survey of the German photographer Elger Esser (one of the last students of famed photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher), and a soon-to-be-announced exhibition that will bring together some of America's most compelling creative individuals with hidden treasures from the Barnes Foundation.

Stainback's wife, Kitty Bowe Hearty, a writer and special project publicist for independent films, will be joining him in Santa Fe. They both will be on hand for AUCTION SITE, SITE Santa Fe's 2003 Summer Benefit Auction, to be held on Saturday, July 12, and they will relocate to Santa Fe by September 2003.