Vox Populi Announces New Executive Director Danny Orendorff
Vox Populi announces the appointment of Danny Orendorff as Executive Director. Orendorff joins the organization full-time on June 15, 2018.
“We are very excited for Danny to join the organization as his background working in collaborative environments and art administration, along with his independent curatorial practice, will fit very nicely with Vox,” said Vox Populi Board President, Debra Ward. “Danny currently resides in New York and will be available part-time remotely effective May 15th.”
“I am thrilled to be joining Vox Populi as the organization prepares to celebrate its 30th year anniversary, and look forward to immersing myself in Philadelphia’s creative, activist, and academic communities,” said Orendorff. “In my career I’ve had the privilege of supporting and witnessing artists that introduce new ideas and create change within their communities, and look forward to working with Vox’s artist membership to expand and refine programming.”
Upon his start, Orendorff will collaborate with members on programming for Vox Populi’s upcoming 30th anniversary, including a Summer Solstice Block Party on June 21 and a forthcoming exhibition pairing current and former collective members.
Orendorff comes to Vox Populi from the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York City, where he has worked as Curator of Public Programs since 2016. While at MAD, Orendorff oversaw the organization of several discursive, cinema, performance, and workshop programs, while also assisting in the management of the Museum’s artist studio and fellowship programs. Additionally, Orendorff co-curated (with Carli Beseau) the exhibition Studio Views: Craft in the Expanded Field; introduced new exhibition programming for emerging artists in the Museum’s Project Space; and organized several performance events, including Kinetic Intimacies (co-curated with Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy).
As an independent curator, Orendorff most recently organized the 2017 exhibition One day this kid will get larger for the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, which explored the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis in North America through the lenses of youth, race, and popular culture. He is currently collaborating with curator Alexandria Eregbu on an exhibition addressing mass incarceration and criminal justice to be presented by Illinois Humanities in Chicago in 2019. Orendorff has organized exhibitions for such venues as Antenna Gallery (New Orleans, LA), The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design (Asheville, NC), SF Camerawork Gallery (San Francisco, CA), Glass Curtain Gallery at Columbia College (Chicago, IL), and the HF Johnson Gallery of Art at Carthage College (Kenosha, WI).
Previously, Orendorff worked as Program Director for the Chicago non-profit gallery Threewalls and as Interim Director of Artistic Programs and Curator-in-Residence for The Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, MO. Orendorff has served as a Lecturer within the Fiber and Material Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his writing has appeared in such periodicals as Surface Design Journal, Camerawork: Journal of Photographic Arts, Art in America Online, Art Practical, Bad at Sports, and Art21. Orendorff has also contributed to several exhibition and art publications, including Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community (AMMO Books, 2017), Jesse Harrod: Low Ropes Course (Publication Studio, 2017), Simone Leigh: I ran to the rock to hide my face and the rock cried out no hiding place (H&R Block Artspace, 2016), Phyllis Bramson: In Praise of Folly (Rockford Art Museum, 2015), Kate Gilmore: Beat It! (H&R Block Artspace, 2014), and Sabina Ott: here and there pink melon joy (Chicago Cultural Center, 2014). Orendorff has a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications and a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Arizona State University.