Dean, The Africa Institute; Chancellor, Global Studies University

Dean, The Africa Institute and Chancellor, Global Studies University

Salah M. Hassan is currently the Chancellor of Global Studies University (GSU) and Dean of The Africa Institute (GSU), Sharjah. He has served as Director of The Africa Institute since its founding in 2018. Additionally, Hassan holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Africana Studies, Director of the Institute for Comparative Modernities (ICM), and Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Cornell University, USA.

Professor Hassan is an art critic, curator, editor, and co-founder of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art (Duke University Press). He currently serves as a member of the editorial advisory board of AtlanticaJournal of Curatorial Studies, and the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. He also served as consulting editor of African Arts.

Hassan’s scholarly contributions include authored, edited, and co-edited volumes such as  Ahmed Morsi: A Dialogic Imagination (2021); Ibrahim El Salahi: A Visionary Modernist (2012); Darfur and the Crisis of Governance: A Critical Reader (2009), and Diaspora, Memory, Place (2008); Unpacking Europe (2001); Authentic/Ex-Centric (2001); and Art and Islamic Literacy among the Hausa of Northern Nigeria (1992). He also edited and introduced, Ibrahim El-Salahi: Prison Notebook (New York and Sharjah, MoMA and SAF Publications, 2018, and guest-edited a special issue of SAQ: South Atlantic Quarterly, on “African Modernism,” (2010). His essays have appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and exhibition catalogues.

Hassan curated several notable international exhibitions, including Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free! A Retrospective 1970–2023 at the Sharjah Art Foundation (2023) and Whitechapel Gallery, London (2024), Kamala Ibrahim Ishag: States of Oneness at Serpentine South, London (2023), The Khartoum School: The Making of the Modern Art Movement in Sudan, 1945-2016 for the Sharjah Art Foundation (2016-2017), and When Art Becomes Liberty: The Egyptian Surrealists (1938–1965) (2016). His other notable curatorial projects include 3x3: Three Artists/Three (Dak'Art, 2004), Unpacking Europe (Rotterdam, 2001-02), and Authentic/Ex-Centric (49th Venice Biennale, 2001).

He has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships, including the J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship, as well as significant grants from the Sharjah Art Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation, and Prince Claus Fund. Hassan has been honored as the 2021 Distinguished Professor by the College Art Association (CAA), the oldest and largest scholarly organization for history and criticism of the visual arts.