Directory

 

Dr. Brian E. Hack was born and raised in Huntingdon, a small but well-meaning town nestled in the hills of Central Pennsylvania. By all accounts a peculiar and annoyingly gregarious child, he baffled and confounded the majority of adults he encountered who were, and in many ways still are, unsure how to take him. In high school he was voted “Most Likely to be Least Likely,” the superlative that spurred him on to find various and mildly rewarding jobs bagging groceries, mowing lawns, and changing the holes on golf course greens. When he eventually ran out of places to put the holes, he decided college was where someone of his temperament belonged, and he has been studying in, or working for, colleges ever since. With little outward but much inward aplomb he bravely ventured from that tiny hamlet into the wicked world of wolves and wonderment that is Manhattan. Despite being somewhat out of sync with city life and possessing little ambition other than a few misdirected enthusiasms, he miraculously received his doctorate from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2007. His dissertation, “American Acropolis: George Grey Barnard’s Monument to Democracy, 1918-1938,” examined a mammoth but uncompleted peace memorial envisioned by one of the nation’s most imaginative sculptors.  For while he cared not a whit for the bustle-and-hustle of the urban existence into which he had haphazardly thrust himself, he did develop a keen interest in sculpture—of bronze and marble monuments of people from the past  whose well-appreciated silence spoke volumes. In addition to his study of sculpture and public monuments of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries, he is interested in the impact of Darwinism and eugenics on American art, in nineteenth century stereoscopic images, and in various other forms of ephemera from this period. Since 1999 he has taught at Kingsborough Community College, where he is fueled by substantial amounts of coffee and by the desire to instill in his students a sense of purpose and an appreciation for art and ideas.  He assumed the Directorship of the Art Gallery of Kingsborough Community College in 2014, soon changing its name to the Kingsborough Art Museum (KAM).  Since that time, he has curated over forty exhibitions and has worked towards the acquisition of a permanent teaching collection for KAM. In 2022-2024 he served as the Chair of the college’s 60^th Anniversary Committee.

Courses

Art 47: American Art

Education

Ph.D., The Graduate Center, City University of New York (2007). Dissertation: American Acropolis: George Grey Barnard’s Monument to Democracy, 1918-1938.

Certificate in American Studies, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (2007)

B.A., Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA (1994)

Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education [Fall 1993], Cheltenham, England

College Teaching

 

Kingsborough Community College (1999-Present)

Exhibitions Curated (2014-Present)

 

2023-2024

Take a Closer Look: Highlights from the KAM Collection

Reflections 2023: The Annual Art Faculty Exhibition

 

2022-2023

Directions 2023: The Annual Student Art Exhibition

Layers of Meaning: Confronting Modernism and Modernity in Contemporary Collage Practice

Contemporary Linocuts: An International Survey of Linoleum Block Printmaking Today

Directions 2022: Annual Art Faculty Exhibition

 

2020-2022

Directions 2022: The Annual Student Art Exhibition

Barry Rosenthal: Convenience & Conveyance (April-May 2022)

Reflections 2021: Annual Art Faculty Exhibition [Virtual Exhibition]

Directions 2021: The Annual Student Art Exhibition [Virtual Exhibition]

The American Eye: Vernacular Photography in the United States from the

Brownie Camera to Instagram [Virtual Ehxibition]

 

 2019-2020

Directions 2020: Annual Student Art Exhibition 

AIDS: You Can't Catch It Holding Hands/ Niki de Saint Phalle 

Antonio Pulgarin: I Stand Here, Like the Sun That Frightens the Cold

Reflections: 2019 Annual Art Faculty Exhibition

2018-2019

Directions 2019: Annual Student Art Exhibition

Time & Tide: Paintings by Frank Lind

Supernatural: Works by Dolores Furtado

Inspiring Images: The Museum Project

Reflections 2018: Annual Art Faculty Exhibition

2017-2018

Directions 2018: Annual Student Art Exhibition

Passages: Sculptures and Prints by Melvin Edwards, 1989-2017

Natalia Zubko: Wonder*sense @ KAM

Liz Whitney Quisgard: The Seduction of Ornament

Love in the Streets: Photographs by Allen Pierre

Reflections 2017: Annual Art Faculty Exhibition

2016-2017

Directions 2017: Annual Student Art Exhibition

 

Salem Art Works: Inherent Narrative

 

Return to Me: Portraits by Fiber Artist Bisa Butler

Shaping a Vision: American Sculptors in their Studios

Reflections 2016: Annual Faculty Art Exhibition

2015-2016

Directions 2016: Annual Student Art Exhibition

Sui Park: Garden of Humans

Drawing the Line: Early Academic Drawings from the Collection of the Art Students League

Reflections 2015: Annual Art Faculty Exhibition

2014-2015

Directions 2015: Annual Student Art Exhibition

Jennifer Greenburg: Revising History

Ashley Zelinskie / Return to Tomorrow: 3D Printed Sculpture for the Posthuman Age

Journeys through Bookland: Contemporary Illustrators of Children's Literature

Context: Language as Medium and Metaphor in Contemporary Art

Reflections 2014: Annual Faculty Exhibition (September 2014)

 

2009  
Curator, “Maidens, Moons and Monsters: The Imagined Worlds of Alex Niño,”
Art Gallery of Kingsborough Community College, CUNY (2009) 

2008
Curator, “Seeing Double: The Art of the Stereoview in Nineteenth-Century America,”
Art Gallery of Kingsborough Community College, CUNY (2008)

 

Selected Publications and/or Other Resources

 

• “Dating Deborah Hall: A Portrait Reconsidered.” CUNY Academic Works [2021] https://academicworks.cuny.edu/kb_pubs/210/

 

• “Weakness is a Crime: Captain America and the Eugenic Ideal in Early Twentieth-Century America,” in Robert G. Weiner, Ed., Captain America and the Struggle of the Superhero, McFarland & Co. [2009]

• Maidens, Moons and Monsters: The Imagined Worlds of Alex Niño [Exhibition Catalogue], Art Gallery of Kingsborough Community College, CUNY (2009)
  
  
  
• Seeing Double: The Art of the Stereoview in Nineteenth-Century America [Exhibition Catalogue], Art Gallery of Kingsborough Community College, CUNY (2008)
  
  
  
• “The Souls of Sons and Lovers: George Grey Barnard’s Monument to Democracy and Other Casualties of War,” Published proceedings from the conference, Constructions of Death, Mourning and Memory Conference, October 2006.
  
  
  
• “Andrew Wilton and Tim Barringer’s American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820-1880” [Book Review].  PART (online journal of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York).
  
  
  
•  “Public Sculpture in New York State;” “Mary Nimmo Moran;”“John Quincy Adams Ward;” Entries, Encyclopedia of New York State, Syracuse University Press, 2005.
  
  
  
• “Spartan Desires: Eugenics and the Sculpture Program of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition”, PART (online journal of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York).
  
  

 

Research Interests

American Sculpture and Public Monuments; Symbolist sculpture

The impact of Darwinism and Eugenics on American Art

George Grey Barnard (1863-1938), American Sculptor

Personal Interests

Rockabilly; Blues; Hillbilly Music and their variants

Playing Guitar 40+ years in various bands, touring US/Canada and abroad

Photography; Drawing; Writing