Josh Siegel is a film curator at The Museum of Modern Art, where he has organized or co-organized more than 90 exhibitions, including Vienna Unveiled: A City in Cinema (2014); Art Theater Guild and Japanese Underground Cinema, 1962-1986 (2013); The Rolling Stones: 50 Years on Film (2012); The New India (2009); the gallery and film exhibition Jazz Score (2008); the gallery installation Projects 84: Josiah McElheny (2007), which traveled to the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and was acquired for its permanent collection; and The Lodz Film School of Poland: 50 Years (1999), for which the Polish government awarded him an amicus poloniae. His monographic exhibitions include Werner Schroeter (2012), Dziga Vertov (2011), Frederick Wiseman (2010), Spike Jonze (2009), Julien Duvivier (2009), Peter Hutton (2008), Michael Haneke (2008), Gregory La Cava (2005), Christopher Guest (2005), Olivier Assayas (2003), Jean Painlevé (2000), Errol Morris (1999), Marguerite Duras (1998), and Jeanne Moreau (1994). In 2002, he co-founded To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation; now celebrating its twelfth year, the festival has showcased more than 1,000 film restorations from archives, studios, and distributors around the world.
Mr. Siegel is the co-editor and author of the 2010 publication Frederick Wiseman (MoMA /Gallimard).Together with curators Kirk Varnedoe and Paola Antonelli, Mr. Siegel co-organized a major reinstallation of The Museum of Modern Art, Open Ends, as part of MoMA2000, and co-edited the accompanying catalogue, Modern Contemporary: Art at MoMA Since 1980. He is also the author of two monographs, Baby, It’s Cold Outside: A History of Finnish Cinema, and The Łódź Film School of Poland: 50 Years.
Since 2012, Mr. Siegel has served on the selection committee for New Directors/New Films, the annual festival, now in its 43rd year, co-presented by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center. With the non-profit art space Ballroom Marfa, he is the co-founder and curator of the first American “art house” Drive-In, scheduled to open in Marfa, Texas, in mid-2015. He currently serves on the executive boards of Cinema Tropical and Light Industry, and on the Creative Time Reports Advisory Committee.
