Chantal Pontbriand

Chantal Pontbriand (born 1951) is a Canadian curator and art critic whose work explores globalization and artistic heterogeneity. She has curated international contemporary art events: exhibitions, international festivals and international conferences, primarily in photography, video, performance, dance and multimedia installation.

Career Pontbriand, born in Montreal, was the founder-director of Parachute, a contemporary art magazine that she founded in 1975 and acted as the publisher/editor until 2007, and the FIND (International Festival of New Dance) that she co-founded in 1982 and acted as president and director until 2003. Both institutions were based in Montreal. In 2010, she was appointed Head of Exhibition Research and Development at Tate Modern in London.

In 2013, Pontbriand received the Governor General of Canada Award for Outstanding Contribution in the Visual and Media Arts. In 2014, Pontbriand received an Honorary Doctorate from Concordia University, Montreal, and the distinction of Officier of the Arts and Letters Order of France. Pontbriand was to serve as the founding curator of Demo-Graphics 1, a new international art event planned for the Greater Toronto Area in 2017. However, on June 23, 2016, eight months into her tenure, Pontbriand left her position as the CEO of the rebranded MOCA.

Exhibitions See Words, I Hear Voices, Dora Garcia, The Power Plant, Toronto Mark Lewis Above and Below, Le Bal, Paris, 2015 Per/Form: How To Do Things with[out] Words, CA2M, Madrid The Yvonne Rainer Project, Jeu de Paume, Centre d'art de la Ferme du Buisson, and Palais de Tokyo, Paris Photography performs: The Body as the Archive, Centre de photographie d'Île-de-France (CPIF) Dora Garcia, Of Crimes and Dreams, Darling Foundry, Montreal, 2014 Higher Powers Command, Lhoist Collection, 2010 HF|RG [Harun Farocki|Rodney Graham], Jeu de Paume, Paris 2009

Publications Suzanne Lafont, Musée départemental d'art contemporain de Rochechouart, Rochechouart, 1997 Mutations, Perspectives on Photography, Steidl/Paris Photo, 2011 The Contemporary, The Common: Art in A Globalizing World, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2013 Per/Form: How To Do Things with[out] Words, CA2M/Sternberg Press, Madrid/Berlin, 2014 Parachute: The Anthology, JRP/Ringier, Zurich, 2012–2015 (4 volumes).