Peru’s best-known art critic, the curator at CCA Tel Aviv, the curator of public programmes at MALBA in Argentina and the chief curator of the Reykjavík Art Museum: what do they have in common? They all had Eccles as their teacher in 2007, after he became director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, and number among an expanding network of established and geographically farflung alumni. Also a student that year was Ruba Katrib, who now teaches at the faculty alongside the luminous likes of Lauren Cornell and Nana Adusei-Poku. As well as the curriculum (with its focus on ‘black studies, decolonial theory and history, queer and feminist studies, ecology and infrastructure, media theory and technology’), Eccles steers the Hessel Museum of Art; is visual arts curator at the Park Avenue Armory; is part of Maja Hoffmann’s ‘core group’ of advisers; is Public Art adviser to Qatar Museums; and is on speed-dial for journalists seeking quotes pertaining to whatever controversy is raging in the artworld.

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