Jim Drobnick
Faculty of Arts & Science
Jim Drobnick is a critic, curator and Professor of Contemporary Art and Theory at OCAD University, Toronto. He has published on the visual arts, performance, the senses, and post-media practices in recent anthologies such as Sound Affects (2023), Olfactory Art and the Political in the Age of Resistance (2021), Designing with Smell (2017), Food and Museums (2017), L’Art Olfactif Contemporain (2015), The Multisensory Museum (2014), Senses and the City (2011), and Art, History and the Senses (2010). He has guest edited special thematic issues of Performance Research (Under the Influence, 2017), PUBLIC (Civic Spectacle, 2012) and The Senses & Society (Sensory Aesthetics, 2012). His books include the anthologies Aural Cultures (2004) and The Smell Culture Reader (2006). He co-founded the Journal of Curatorial Studies, an international, peer-reviewed journal that explores the increasing relevance of curating and exhibitions and their impact on institutions, audiences, aesthetics and display culture. His curatorial collaborative, DisplayCult, organizes art exhibitions that foreground performative and multisensory projects (www.displaycult.com).
DisplayCult's exhibitions include Portraits as Portals (Art Windsor-Essex and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre), Archives by Artists (Galerie UQO and the Archives of Ontario), NIGHTSENSE (Nuit Blanche, Toronto), MetroSonics (National Gallery of Canada Library), Odor Limits (Esther M. Klein Art Gallery), Listening Awry (McMaster Museum of Art), Aural Cultures (Walter Phillips Gallery), Linda Montano (Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts), reminiSCENT (FADO), Museopathy (Agnes Etherington Art Centre), Vital Signs (Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery) and CounterPoses (Oboro), among others.