SF Art Institute names new director

The Santa Fe Art Institute has named Sanjit Sethi of Oakland’s California College of the Arts its new executive director.

Sethi is the school’s Barclay Simpson chair and assistant professor of community arts and director of the Center for Art and Public Life.

Sethi’s appointment, announced Wednesday, will begin Aug. 1.

From 2004 through 2008, Sethi was director of the MFA program at the Memphis College of Art. His résumé includes stints at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s visual arts program and the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore, India.

“Sanjit Sethi is a dynamic leader whose experience as an artist, arts educator, administrator and collaborator is a unique fit for the Santa Fe Art Institute,” said Richard Martinez, president of the institute board.

Sethi holds a master’s degree in Advanced Visual Studies from MIT, an MFA from the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art and a BFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. In 2004 he was granted a Fulbright Fellowship.

Former Santa Fe Institute director Diane Karp stepped down last June.

The Santa Fe Art Institute, founded in 1985, is an independent, nonprofit, community-based arts center with international reach.