About Zoë Ryan
Zoë Ryan is the Director of the Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since joining the Hammer in 2025, she has focused on strengthening the museum’s role as a platform for art and ideas, a hub for learning, engagement, and research, and a catalyst for social and cultural change.
From 2020-2024, Zoë was the Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania (ICA). There she expanded the institution’s reputation as a launchpad for contemporary art, research, and ideas. She spearheaded the creation of Entryways, an annual commission for the façade of ICA; and expanded public engagement efforts with a focus on partnerships with the university and local, national, and international arts organizations.
Prior to this, Zoë was a Curator and then the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago (2006-2020). Here she set the vision for collecting and exhibiting modern and contemporary architecture and design. Her exhibitions included, In a Cloud, In a Wall, In a Chair: Six Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury. In 2014, Zoë was the curator of the second Istanbul Design Biennial, titled, The Future is Not What it Used to Be.
Zoë is an active lecturer and has taught graduate courses in design history and theory at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a member of the Design Trust International Advisory Council, Hong Kong; a Board of Advisor for MAS Context; and on the Executive Committee of the International Confederation of Architecture Museums.