Zoë Ryan is the Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the ICA in November 2020. Previously, she was the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), where she founded the contemporary design collection. Her recent exhibitions include In a Cloud, in a Wall, in a Chair: Six Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury (2019), which highlighted a critical transnational network of artists and designers active in Mexico in the post-revolutionary period, and Past Forward: Architecture and Design at the Art Institute (2017–ongoing), a major installation of the modern and contemporary architecture and design collections. In 2017, she edited As Seen: Exhibitions that Made Architecture and Design History, the first volume to explore in-depth the important role that exhibitions have played in the history of the architecture and design fields. Ryan earned an MA in art history from Hunter College, the City University of New York and a BA in art history from the University of Sussex.
