BESSIRE, Mark H. C. 1964-

PERSONAL:

Born June 28, 1964; son of Henry (a management consultant) and Louise (a chaplain) Bessire; married August 12, 1991; wife's name Aimée (a professor of African art history); children: Blakey, Clay. Education: New York University, B.A., 1986; Hunter College of the City University of New York, M.A., 1992; Columbia University, M.B.A., 1994.

ADDRESSES:

Home—20 Salem St., Portland, ME 04102. Office—Institute of Contemporary Art, Maine College of Art, 522 Congress, Portland, ME 04101. E-mail—mbessire@mcca.edu.

CAREER:

Museum director, curator, and author. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, curatorial assistant, research assistant, then curator, 1987-89; Hunter College of the City University of New York, curatorial assistant, 1990; Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, NY, registrar for Chase art program, 1991; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, co-curator of exhibition at William Hayes Fogg Art Museum, 1996-2001, director of research, 1996-97, acting exhibitions coordinator for university art museums, 1997, academic dean and Allston Burr senior tutor, 1997-98; Maine College of Art, Portland, director of Institute of Contemporary Art, 1998—. Danforth Gallery, curator of "Generation X" at Maine Artists Space, 2000.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Helena Rubinstein fellow, 1988; Fulbright fellow in Tanzania, 1995-96.

WRITINGS:

(With others) The Sukuma, Rosen Publishing (New York, NY), 1996.

Great Zimbabwe, Dillon Press (New Jersey), 1998.

Beyond Decorum: The Photography of Iké Udé, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000.

(Editor) Wena Gu: Art from Middle Kingdom to Biological Millennium, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2003.

Author of exhibition catalogs and brochures. Contributor to periodicals, including Art Journal, East African, Jambo, Museum International, and Boston Book Review.