András Szántó

After a youth spent in Budapest and London, Szántó attended the Budapest University of Economics (now Corvinus University). His bachelor's thesis investigated Stalinist-era persecution in Eastern Europe and was published in 1989.[3]

Szántó moved to New York to pursue graduate studies in sociology. At Graduate Center, CUNY, he conducted a study on classical pianists.[4] In 1989, he moved to Columbia University, where, as a Lazarsfeld Fellow, he shifted his focus to the institutions of the visual art world. He regularly published journalism and worked as an analyst at the Media Studies Center, a think-tank.[5] His 1996 Ph.D. dissertation, Gallery Transformations in the New York Art World in the 1980's, is a sociological analysis of the institutional dynamics of art.[6]

While at Columbia, Szántó published journalism and worked as an analyst at the Media Studies Center, a think-tank. In 1997-2005, he was deputy director and subsequently director of the National Arts Journalism Program (NAJP), in association with Columbia’s schools of Journalism and Arts.[7]

Szántó has lectured on sociology at Columbia and at Barnard College and taught art business and marketing communications at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York.[8]

Szántó’s strategic advisory clients span the art world, from non-profit institutions to commercial brands.[9] His consulting encompasses early-stage visioning and strategic planning, the design and implementation of corporate programming and marketing initiatives, the design of conferences and public forums, and publications and communications linked to them.[10] Planning projects frequently address the needs of organizations operating at the intersection of multiple disciplines and innovative projects promoting new practices and experimentation in the arts.

Szántó's writing on arts and cultural institutions has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Art Newspaper, Artforum, The American Prospect, and other publications. In the field of public affairs, he was a correspondent for Magyar Narancs and has published op-ed articles in The Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times. He organized a 2007 conference at the New York Public Library on political propaganda, and edited the companion book of essays, What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics.[12]

Through his firm, Andras Szanto LLC, he consults on programming, marketing initiatives and strategic planning for corporations and non-profit organizations in the arts. His firm's non-profit clients include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Guggenheim Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Pew Charitable Trusts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. Corporate clients include Art Basel, The Absolut Company, and the Davidoff Art Initiative.[13]

Szántó has served on the advisory boards of Apexart, The Alliance for the Arts, The Gordon Parks Foundation, and the George H. Heyman Center for Philanthropy at NYU. He is a Board member of the Moholy-Nagy Foundation[14] and a US Trustee of the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP)[15] in Bangalore, India.

He lives in New York City with his wife, Alanna Stang, and their two sons.

• What Orwell Didn't Know. New York: PublicAffairs, 2007.
• A Portrait of the Visual Arts: Meeting the Challenges of a New Era. Arthur Brooks, Kevin McCarthy, Elizabeth Ondaatje, András Szántó, eds. Santa Monica: RAND Research in the Arts, 2005.
• The New Gatekeepers: Emerging Challenges to Freedom of Expression in the Arts, Christopher Hawthorne and András Szántó, eds. New York: National Arts Journalism Project and DAP, 2004.
• Hot and Cool: Some Contrasts between the Visual Art Worlds of New York and Los Angeles in New York & Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture: A Comparative View, David Halle, ed. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

• Appearances on C-SPAN