Dean Otto

Dean Otto is the new Curator of Film at the Speed Art Museum. Prior to his arrival at the Speed, Dean had been with the Walker Art Center for over 24 years in various positions from Program Manager to Associate Curator, Film/Video. During his 20 years in Moving Image at Walker he has programmed the 19-part Rainer Werner Fassbinder film retrospective, co-curated the exhibition The Parade featuring the work of Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg which toured to the New Museum and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, managed the international tour of the series Magnetic North at 17 sites, and coordinated the residencies of Arthur Dong, Christian Marclay and Craig Baldwin. Through the Premieres: First Look program he has hosted artists such as Spike Lee, Miranda July, Debra Granik, Jem Cohen, Rahmin Bahrani and Guy Maddin. He has co-curated the Expanding the Frame series at Walker introducing audiences to new work by Bruce McClure, Daniel Barrow, Luther Price and Ben Russell and co-curated the Artists’ Cinema series which has brought artists and curators to the Walker such as Gillian Wearing, Michael Robinson, Kerry Tribe and Ed Halter. Otto has organized many interdisciplinary programs such as the annual Summer Music & Movies series that has involved commissioning local bands to create new scores for silent films. He has also created a number of partnerships with area universities to deepen the audience engagement with film including the recent retrospective and visit by Oscar-nominated director Abderrahmane Sissako. In addition, Otto co-curated MNTV, an annual series of work by Minnesota-based on Twin Cities Public Television. He curated the Walker’s Queer Takes program after serving as the programmer for the Minneapolis/St. Paul LGBT Film Festival for several years for Minnesota Film Arts. He has grown the audiences for the annual British Arrows program to over 27,000. He also served as President of the Board of Midwest Media Artists’ Access Center in St. Paul during his two-year term.