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Jessica Luton
June 29, 2023
The museum's new director, David Odo, began his new position this week.
Get to know our new director: A Q&A with David Odo
After an extensive national search, David Odo was named the new director of the Georgia Museum of Art earlier this year. Coming to the museum from Harvard Art Museums, where he was director of academic and public programs, division head and research curator, Odo made a name for himself by leading numerous initiatives that connected departments and schools across the university with the museums. Odo is a visual and material anthropologist, an expert on 19th-century Japanese photography, and has published and lectured widely on that subject and museum pedagogy. His research and teaching interests are in the anthropology of art, the body in art and material culture and the intersections of art and medicine. He has a wealth of experience in research, teaching and museum leadership roles.
What does he bring to the table as our new director? Odo started his new position at the museum earlier this week and we sat down with him to get to know a little bit more about him and his plans for the museum.
Q: How did you become interested in a career in the museum world and what did your path look like to this new role at the Georgia Museum of Art?
A: My parents inadvertently got my museum career started by dragging me around museums from the time I was a young child. I eventually developed into an avid museum visitor of my own accord, especially after taking a required course in art humanities my first year of college. But it wasn’t until graduate school at the University of Oxford that I truly started my path to becoming a museum professional. At Oxford, I conducted research primarily at the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Ashmolean Museum, as well as at museums and archives elsewhere in Europe and Japan. I was also extremely fortunate to spend several years on postdoctoral fellowships at some of the world’s most incredible museums, including the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Smithsonian Institution, focusing on collections of 19th-century photographs of Japan.
After graduate school, I taught and guest curated at Harvard and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology for several years before heading to the Yale University Art Gallery, where I deepened and expanded interdisciplinary teaching at the museum. At Yale I realized the enormous pedagogical value that art collections hold for the entire university curriculum. I then returned to Harvard, where I continued my very satisfying work with students and faculty at the art museum, but I also developed an equally intense enthusiasm for connecting the museum with public audiences. I discovered ways to connect the academic and public missions of my work by, for example, providing opportunities for students to make real contributions to our work with the public by challenging them to find innovative ways to connect with community members in the museum space, whether to discuss great works of art through their own thematic tours or study for the US citizenship examination. I’m so excited to bring this same enthusiasm to my role as director of the Georgia Museum of Art, where I look forward to further developing the museum’s already impactful work with campus and area public communities.
Q: Athens is a unique town with a lot to offer. What are you and your family most excited about in terms of moving to Athens?
A: My wife and I have spent most of our adult lives in university towns, not only pursuing our own education and careers, but also because we love their dynamism and diversity. To me, Athens is the best of both worlds: it’s a quintessential university town with all the cultural and intellectual vibrancy one expects, but it also has a strong sense of community with so much to do in addition to all that UGA offers. We are excited to take advantage of Athens’ dynamic restaurant scene and all the wonderful nearby hiking and kayaking opportunities. We also want to carve out some time to (re)learn how to garden.
Q: What does being a museum director entail? What are you most excited about as you assume this new role?
A: As a museum director, working in collaboration with my incredible team, I have a large portfolio of responsibilities, including setting institutional vision and mission, overseeing the collection and developing policy and long-range strategies. I would say that the most important aspect of my work is to ensure that as many people – students and community members alike – as possible have access to incredible art and incredible experiences at our incredible museum. In fact, one of the main reasons I accepted UGA’s generous offer to come to Athens was the fact that the museum is not only free and open to the public, but also has a dual role as both the university and state museum. That is a responsibility that beautifully honors the museum’s founding principles and perfectly aligns with my personal mission to ensure that as many people as possible engage with, value and trust the museum. But there is work to be done. In the museum field we understand that “free” and “accessible” aren’t necessarily equivalent terms, and I am very motivated to work with museum and university colleagues in close collaboration with current and future partners from many different communities to reduce invisible access barriers to the museum. Part of that work means taking a hard look at where we can do better at understanding what communities want from us, how we can contribute to supporting their needs and goals using our resources and skills and how they may want to contribute to the life and vitality of the museum. It’s challenging but exciting work. I can’t wait to get started!