John Hanhardt
American author, art historian
John G. Hanhardt is an American author, art historian, and curator of film and media arts. Hanhardt was the Consulting Senior Curator for Media Arts at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, where he developed exhibitions, collections, and archives in film and the media arts.
He is considered to be one of the leading scholars on video artist Nam June Paik.
Personal life
Hanhardt grew up in Rochester, New York. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Rochester in 1967, and his master's degree and additional graduate work (ABD) in cinema studies from New York University in 1970.
Hanhardt has written many books and in 2019 came out with a new book,We Are in Open Circuits- Writings by Nam June Paik
Career
Hanhardt's expansive curatorial practice spans three decades. Hanhardt began his career in the department of Film and Video at the Museum of Modern Art. He then went on to establish the first Film and Media Arts collection at the Walker Art Museum. Following his success at the Walker, Hanhardt was appointed Curator and Head of the Film and Video department at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1974. At the Whitney, Hanhardt was the director of the New American Film and Video Series which surveyed independent film and the emergence of video as an art form.
The public source identifies “John Hanhardt” as american author, art historian. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around John, Hanhardt and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20715572. VIAF identifies the subject as 49377157. The Library of Congress control number is n82026230. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1970, 2019 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Hanhardt” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.