Dr. Kenneth Montague Joins Aperture Board of Trustees

Aperture announces the appointment of Dr. Kenneth Montague to its board of trustees, effective September 15, 2022, joining the range of community advocates, philanthropists, business leaders, educators, artists, and collectors that lead and support the esteemed photography nonprofit.

“Ken is an incredibly committed advocate for artists and underrepresented voices, who brings with him extensive leadership experience in the arts, nonprofit institutions, medicine, and business,” said Cathy M. Kaplan, Chair of Aperture’s board. “We are thrilled to welcome him to Aperture’s leadership as we celebrate our 70th anniversary this year and look ahead to the opening of our new permanent home in summer 2024.”

An avid art collector, community leader, nonprofit founder, and advocate for African and Diasporic artists, Dr. Montague comes to Aperture with a breadth of expertise in championing underrecognized achievements and a long-standing commitment to the medium of photography. Montague started the Wedge Collection in 1997 to acquire and exhibit art that explores Black identity and subsequently founded Wedge Curatorial Projects, a nonprofit arts organization that helps to support emerging Black artists. The organization mounts exhibitions and lectures that explore Diasporic narratives, identity, and issues of representation.

Based in Toronto, Montague is a successful business leader who founded the group practice Word of Mouth Dentistry. He has served on the boards and acquisition committees of major institutions internationally, including the Art Gallery of Ontario’s board of trustees since 2015, and as a member of the African acquisitions committee at Tate Modern, London. He is also an advisor to the Department of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Dr. Montague’s book, As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic (Aperture, 2021), serves as a testament to the support provided to artists by collecting and amplifying their work. As Teju Cole writes in “Letter to a Friend,” Montague “hews closely to his father’s mantra, ‘lifting as we rise,’ in his collecting, elevating the experiences of Black lives, the artists who capture them and, in turn, viewers who identify with them. As a result of this dynamic, Montague’s collection of photographs—made through the lens of the African and African diasporic experience—is a rare, insightful, radical, and bold act of deliverance.”

Dr. Montague joins Aperture’s existing board members with a shared dedication to the medium of photography: Peter Barbur, Julie Bédard, Dawoud Bey, Kwame Samori Brathwaite, Allan Chapin, Stuart B. Cooper, Kate Cordsen, Elaine Goldman, Lyle Ashton Harris, Michael Hoeh, Julia Joern, Elizabeth Ann Kahane, Cathy M. Kaplan, Philippe E. Laumont, Andrew E. Lewin, Lindsay McCrum, Joel Meyerowitz, Vasant Nayak, Dr. Stephen W. Nicholas, Helen Nitkin, Melissa O’Shaughnessy, Lisa Rosenblum, Thomas R. Schiff, Colette Veasey-Cullors, Casey Taylor Weyand, and Deborah Willis.