WRITING
Judy Annear is Honorary (Fellow) at the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne.  She was Adjunct at the Art & Design Faculty, University of NSW,  Sydney 2017–2020. She is a member of the Monash University Museum of Art Advisory Committee 2024–.

In 2020 she was a Terra Foundation Fellow at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles examining the early work of Allan Sekula, and she  delivered an in–depth lecture on the 1982 exhibition Popism as part of ACCA’s Defining Moments: Australian exhibition histories 1968–1999.

In 2019 she spent two months in Paris courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Australia Council and Create NSW researching Australian photographs sent to Paris in the 19th century.

Her literary writings have appeared in second factory #2, Cordite Poetry Review, Past simple 14, Plumwood Mountain Journal, Minarets 11, Australian Poetry Journal, and Decameron (YIP 2020). In 2019 she published THE Ls, a small book of experimental writing, followed by now then 2021, and soundings (Stolon Press) 2022. In 2016 she initiated and was one of 16 writers for Exquisite consequences (effefe.net).

She has published in journals such as Art+Text (member of the editorial committee 1987–94), Memo Review, Art Monthly, Art & Australia, Art Asia Pacific, LIKE, ART-iT Asia, Broadsheet, 4A Papers, eyeline, TAASA Review. In 1980, she was a member of the collective for the feminist arts magazine LIP.

She was previously editor of and writer for the publication Mnemosyne (AGNSW/Scalo 2005) on Bill Henson’s work, and the Photography collection handbook (AGNSW 2007). She is author and editor of the publication The photograph and Australia (AGNSW 2015). In 2015-16 she lectured on writing photographic histories and the importance of photographic collections both nationally and in Canada, New Zealand and Japan.

Her research specialisations include Japanese modern and contemporary art and 20th century photography, Australian modern and contemporary art,  international photography (European modernist and contemporary, American contemporary and Korean contemporary), and literary feminisms.

CURATING
In the 1980s and 90s Judy Annear’s work focused on contemporary and experimental practice particularly from Australia, Europe and Japan. She was curator of Australian Perspecta 1995, and curator of Zones of Love: contemporary art from Japan 1991-2.

She was senior curator photographs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 1995 until 2016. She instigated a program of collection-based projects as well as curating major national and international exhibitions. She established a collection program for the photography gallery 2011-16. Some  artists included in that program were Jacky Redgate, Tracey Moffatt, Bettina Rheims, David Stephenson, Pat Brassington.

She spearheaded important photography exhibitions that furthered knowledge and exposure of the medium, and of Australian and international artists. These include: Len Lye (2001–2), the first monographic exhibition of Man Ray in Australia (2004), a retrospective of Bill Henson (2005), August Sander (2007) with the J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Alfred Stieglitz: the Lake George years (2010) with the assistance of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and Photography & place: Australian landscape photography 1970s until now (2011). She was curator of The photograph and Australia 2015. She edited Robert Mapplethorpe: the perfect medium for Sydney (2017) in conjunction with Los Angeles County Museum of Art and J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.