Curator · Art historian · Writer · Gallery director
One curator, at home in Beijing, Havana, Lhasa, Oaxaca, the Pilbara, Wales, Taipei
From the Black Mountains of Wales to a studio in Beijing, a biennial in Havana to a residency in the Pilbara – Damian Smith is the figure art institutions call when a project crosses borders, languages and centuries. Thirty years of writing and curating, kept whole and made navigable.
Four reasons institutions call
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1994 – present The Sidney Nolan authority Inaugural archivist for Nolan's estate in Wales; now consulted from museum surveys to the saleroom. Auction essay, Early Morning Township – sold $2.7M -
2018 – 2022 The Geoff Raby Collection of Contemporary Chinese Art Editor of the bilingual monograph across three editions, ending at La Trobe University Press / Black Inc. The largest cultural gift in La Trobe's history - 2019 Australian Pavilion, 13th Bienal de la Habana Curated ten Australian artists into The Construction of the Possible, Casa de Asia, Old Havana. Australia within the Global South
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2016 – present The Damian Smith Archive, State Library of Victoria A library-held record of one freelance curator's practice – mapping contemporary Australian art. 207+ artists · 74 catalogues · 57 exhibitions
The Atlas
Home base
Melbourne
37.8°S · 145.0°E – home base
The studio. Director of the Australasian Cultural Arts Exchange (ACAE Gallery), Fellow at the Centre of Visual Art, University of Melbourne, and decades of projects with Heide, the NGV, the MCA, La Trobe, RMIT and the State Library of Victoria.
State Library of Victoria · National Gallery of Victoria · Blindside ARI
Read the projectConsultancy services
- Art writing Monographs, exhibition catalogues, essays and criticism, commissioned by institutions and publishers.
- Curatorial Biennales, survey exhibitions, group and solo shows, from large-scale installations to salon hangs.
- Collection & museum management Collection strategy, programming, and moving private collections into public institutions.
- Cultural gifts Guidance on donating artworks to Australian public collections under the Cultural Gifts Program.
- Risk & governance Working where expression is regulated, and the board-level experience behind it.
- Education & speaking Lecturing, conference papers and public speaking on contemporary art and curatorial practice.
The Damian Smith Archive
Held at the State Library of Victoria since 2016.
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2020s
- 2025 Sidney Nolan’s Irishness Fintan Cullen, Fiona Barber (eds.) Routledge Companion to Irish Art (New York: Routledge), 2025
- 2025 Gary Willis 1970-2025 - Likea masked traveller drifting through time Words For Art · Smith with Zimmer, J Willis, G
- 2025 Passage and Echo: Sidney Nolan x Guan Wei Vermilion Gallery, Sydney, 10 July – 16 August 2025 · Curator
- 2024 ACAE Gallery: The Australasian Cultural Arts Exchange ACAE Gallery
- 2023 David Freney Millis: Hyperglyphs ACAE Gallery
- 2023 Deutscher Hackett auction Sidney Nolan ‘Early Morning Township’ 1955, 16 August 2023. Artwork sale price $2,700,000 (inc. BP) · Feature article
- 2023 Elmira Ng: 100 Children at Play ACAE Gallery – digital catalogue
- 2023 Sidney Nolan’s personal collection of North American Slave Dolls 27 August, 2023 · Leski Auctions Pty Ltd
- 2023 Tony Smibert: Tao Sublime ACAE Gallery
- 2023 Visiting the Ancestors in Angie Pai: Why You Like This, Chaos. Writers include Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, James J. Robinson, Jason Phu, Leah Jing McIntosh, Lily Goodwin, Panda Wong, Sebastian Henry-Jones, Tasha Tylee, Con Gerakaris, and Damian Smith
- 2022 Ah Xian’s New Works on Paper: Fledging Vermilion Gallery, Sydney
- 2022 Bronek Kozka: The Imperfect Beauty of the Sublime ACAE Gallery, Melbourne
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