Profile

Professor Neil Powell was recently appointed as an Ambassador for the Terzo Paradiso (Fondazione Pistoletto ONLUS), and the central focus of this role is a commitment to promoting creativity and change in accordance with the United Nations Strategic Development Goals and the Cittadelartte’s Geographies of Change. Powell is Emeritus Professor in Art and Design Education and former Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at Norwich University of the Arts (NUA), England. Alongside his roles as a curator, artist and senior academic, he is known for his work with public and private sector creative arts bodies. A former Henry Moore Scholar, his practice has been influenced by his encounters with artists, teachers and curators including Phillip King, Jannis Kounnellis, Helen Chadwick, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Claudio Parmiggiani, Richard Deacon, Karsten Schubert, Eduardo Paolozzi, Art & Language and Roger Ackling.

Recent projects include the ‘Territory: Exhibition in a Box’ exhibitions/installations and events at Lust and the Apple, Edinburgh (March 2019) and Collaboratorium I’m Aufbau am Moritzplatz (CLB), Berlin (April 2019), Rebirth/Terzo Paradiso – Fondazione Pistoletto, December 2020, Italy and Wright Gallery, TAMU, Texas, USA (March 2021). 

Since 2014 he has contributed a monthly column on arts and culture for Wall Street International, is a guest columnist for Arts and Museum Magazine and was recently commissioned to write a piece on Luciano Fabro for the The Brooklyn Rail in NYC. He has made numerous appearances on BBC and ITV television and BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. His work features in the Imago Mundi – Art Theorema #1 exhibition, at Salone degli Incanti in Trieste, Italy (2018), and he is currently working on a project (‘Earth Axis’) with the artist, Claudio Parmiggiani for Houghton to launch in May 2021. In May 2019, Powell curated an exhibition featuring the work of the late Sir Anthony Caro, Iron in the Soul, to coincide with the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.

For a number of years Powell has worked with Arts Council Collections and Hayward Gallery Touring alongside work with commercial galleries such as Simon Lee (London, New York, Hong Kong) and Annely Juda, London. He is a curator in his own right with over 100 shows to his credit over the past three decades. He has previously been involved in the curator selection for the Hayward Open Curatorial and was closely associated with the last edition of the UK’s major survey exhibition, the British Art Show 8.

Powell has written and exhibited extensively on the international stage, with past projects including a major showing of Art & Language at MoMA PS1, New York, with Professor Michael Corris, and has curated and organised shows by the likes of Claude Cahun, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Tess, Jaray, Michael Craig-Martin, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Damien Hirst, Alison Wilding, Alfredo Jaar, John Craske, Roger Ackling, Ana Maria Pacheco and Ian Hamilton Finlay. In 2018 Powell worked with Mario Codognato and the Houghton Estate to bring Damien Hirst’s ‘Hymn’ to Norwich and subsequently, ‘Erl King’ by Sir Anthony Caro. The ‘Mutator’ show with Professor William Latham was originated for Norwich but was included in the 57th Venice Biennale and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Born Manchester, England 1961. Based in Norfolk, England and Emilia-Romagna, Italy.