Professor Emeritus of Art History and Director (from 2011 through his retirement in 2021) of the School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech, Kevin Concannon, received his PhD in Modern/Contemporary and African art history from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2000. His scholarship focuses on art of the 1960s, particularly the work of Yoko Ono.
Recent curatorial projects include: Marilyn Minter: Splash; Liz Fiederok: Abstract; Willie Cole:UpCycle; Laurie Anderson: Invented Instruments; Lynn Hershman Leeson: Body Collage; Yoko Ono: My Mommy is Beautiful and YOKO ONO IMAGINE PEACE Featuring John & Yoko’s Year of Peace, which traveled for 10 years. His curatorial projects have been featured in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
Publication highlights include "Actionable Art: From Sam's Cafe to United Art Contractors, Conceptual Art on Trial," Blackbird: a journal of literature and the arts, 21, no. 1 (Spring 2022); "Yoko Ono's Touch Piece:A Work in Multiple Media, 1960-2009," OnCurating 51 (September 2021): 133-149; “Lost in the Archive: Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s Four Thoughts,” Review of Japanese Culture and Society 28 (2016); "Yoko Ono's Dreams: The Power of Positive Wishing," Performance Research 19, no. 2 (2014); the Brian Eno entry in Grove Art Online (www.groveart.com); “Cut and Paste: Collage and the Art of Sound,” in Sound By Artists (facsimile edition) (Ontario: Charivari Press, 2013) republication of 1990 volume; “Yoko Ono,” in Joan Marter, ed., The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, Volume 3 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011): 595-96; “Dalí in Virginia,” SECAC Review XLI, no. 5 (2010): 598-607; “Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1964): From text to performance and back again,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 30, no. 3 (September 2008): 81-93; "War Is Over! John and Yoko’s Christmas Eve Happening, Tokyo, 1969," Review of Japanese Culture and Society 17 (December 2005): 72-85; “Yoko Ono,” Grove Art Online (www.groveart.com) featured article in the new Asian Contemporary Artists section; "Nothing Is Real: Yoko Ono's Advertising Art," in YES: YOKO ONO (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and the Japan Society of New York, 2000); and, with Reiko Tomii, "Chronology" and "Bibliography" in the same volume. His publications have been translated into French, German, Japanese, and Korean.
At Virginia Tech, he worked with an outstanding faculty and staff developing innovative programs that leverage technology in the arts. The School of Visual Arts offers a BA in Art History; a BFA with majors in Visual Communication Design, Studio Art, and Creative Technologies; an MFA in Creative Technologies; and an MA in Material Culture and Public Humanities (in collaboration with the Departments of Religion & Culture and History). He taught courses in Modern and Contemporary Art.
At The University of Akron (2001-2011), he taught the Survey of Art History as well as courses in Modern and Contemporary Art as well as Art of the African Diaspora. Concannon’s prior museum career spanned 12 years, managing outreach programs for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) and the Neuberger Museum (where his Public Art Symposium, Setting Sites, was covered by The New York Times), and culminating in his appointment as Project Manager for the Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Museum Collections Accessibility Initiative at the VMFA.