2025 Art Prize Judge
Erica Green
Erica Green, renowned art director, curator, and leader, established Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum, Adelaide, 2007.
Erica Green she is the founding director of the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, established in 2007 at the University of South Australia, Adelaide. In a career of over thirty years in the professional visual arts, she has achieved national renown for her enterprise and leadership as an art museum director, curator and arts administrator, curating or managing over 100 original exhibitions. As director of the Samstag Museum of Art she is responsible for commissioning and developing the Museum’s exhibitions and public programs. She additionally manages the University Art Collection; the prestigious Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships program; and the University of South Australia’s many cultural partnerships.
As the Visual Arts Executive Officer for the 2004 Adelaide Festival led by Artistic Director Stephen Page, she curated the Artists’ Week program featuring American writer and cultural critic Dave Hickey. Erica Green’s expertise in contemporary Australian art was recognised by her 2011 appointment to the federal government’s Cultural Gifts Program committee: she was also a founding member, in 2007, of the influential University Art Museums Australia group (UAMA).
In 2016 Erica Green was appointed Curator of the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Divided Worlds exhibition. Extending across Adelaide’s cultural precinct, North Terrace, the 2018 Adelaide Biennial was presented at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art at the University of South Australia, JamFactory and Adelaide Botanic Garden including the Santos Museum of Economic Botany. The exhibition titled Divided Worlds, recognises that we live in troubled times. However, rather than foretelling conflict, the exhibition celebrates the enduring role of art and culture. Divided Worlds offers an opportunity to experience an alternative dimension – one where “difference” is the natural order of things, and a strength to be celebrated.
