2015
NE W YORK Association of Art Museum Curators 14th Annual Conference & Meeting May 9 – 12, 2015 #aamcinnyc
CONTENTS PRESIDENT’S WELCOME
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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S INTRODUCTION
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AAMC & AAMC FOUNDATION LEADERSHIP & COMMITTEES
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CONFERENCE AGENDA
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SPONSORS & SUPPORTERS
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AAMC FOUNDATION CIRCLE DONORS
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AAMC INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS
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AAMC & AAMC FOUNDATION: AWARDS & PROGRAMS
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PANEL DESCRIPTIONS & PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES
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The information in this document is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by AAMC and/or AAMC Foundation. AAMC and/or AAMC Foundation assume no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this document. In no event shall AAMC and/or AAMC Foundation be liable for incidental or consequential damages arising from use of this document or other conference-related material. This document and parts thereof must not be reproduced or copied without AAMC and/or AAMC Foundation providing written permission, and contents thereof must not be imparted to a third party nor be used for any unauthorized purpose.
PRESIDENT’S WELCOME Welcome to the 2015 AAMC Annual Conference & Meeting. Consider this for an opening salvo: “It is easy for a museum to get objects; it is hard for a museum to get brains . . . . [H]ere are the things that museum brains must fight against : — fashionable museum buildings, fashionable museum collections and fashionable treatment of collections. And here are the things they must fight for: — the making of such collections, and the construction of such buildings, and the employment of persons of such skill, and the granting to those persons such powers and liberties as will compel the collections, the buildings and the staffs all to work together for the pleasure, the education and the profit of their respective communities.” So wrote John Cotton Dana, visionary museum leader and founder of the Newark Museum, in 1917. Mobilizing a different kind of museum in Progressive-era USA, one with a democratic impulse, Dana conceived of a museum that would serve all strata of society, including and especially the working class of Newark, New Jersey. Key, to me, in his opening statement of the 1917 The New Museum is the phrase “respective communities,” for Dana recognized what was right for Manhattan may not be right for Newark and, to extrapolate, what was right for Seattle, might not be right for Kansas City, and so on. Digging deep into our “respective communities” is one of the themes of this year’s AAMC annual conference as we move beyond our usual haunts on the Upper East Side and at Midtown. Beginning with an opening celebration at the Newark Museum, then to the Brooklyn Museum, and The Bronx Museum of the Arts, with optional stops along the way at Bard Graduate Center, The Cloisters Museum and Gardens, the High Line, Queens Museum, and the SculptureCenter, the AAMC travels to seven venues we’ve never seen before at past conferences in New York. Setting the tone for us is keynote speaker Tom Finkelpearl, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Finkelpearl’s overarching principle of “social cooperation” that informed his decade-long tenure as Director of the Queens Museum ushered in a new era for this innovative institution. As the AAMC has grown to nearly 1,300 individual and institutional members, the “respective communities” that we serve are more than ever disparate from one another economically, politically, ethnically, socially, and so forth. AAMC proudly celebrates this growing richness and we hope that you use your membership actively to tap into it in terms of professional development, mentoring, advocacy, and networking. As I received the proverbial President’s baton from Carol Eliel and now hand off to Helen Evans, I am reminded time and again of how you all inspire your “respective communities” in unique and valuable ways. Thank you to Judith Pineiro and Meredith Dean, and the AAMC Board, for their commitment, humor, dedication and keen insight, and thank you to all of you for giving me the honor and privilege of serving as your President.
EMILY BALLEW NEFF President, AAMC & AAMC Foundation Executive Director, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art 3
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S INTRODUCTION I am delighted to welcome you to New York and the 14th Annual AAMC Conference & Meeting. During the Conference, in both organized and organic ways, our members benefit immensely from networking and mentoring opportunities. The 2014 Detroit Conference was my first as the organization’s Executive Director, and I can personally attest to the positive energy of the attendees and the insightful conversations among curators at all career levels taking place daily. During the four-day program, AAMC arranges formal activities, including sessions, case studies, the year-long Mentorship Program announcement and end-of-program reception, Awards of Excellence presentation, “at-conference” networking sessions, Curatorial Slam presentations, annual member meeting, and more. However, we also witness junior curators arranging meetings with experienced curators they have yet to meet face-to-face, impromptu brainstorming on transit rides, and selforganized field groups gathering for a meal or drinks – all those informal ways in which AAMC members gather spontaneously. The AAMC Conference & Meeting is a major benefit of AAMC membership but, more importantly, it is not the only programming AAMC offers its members. Since our meeting in Detroit, we have had four Professional Development webinars with attendance from across the US and Canada, announced the two awardees of the ADAA Foundation Curatorial Research & Development Grant, named the first and second Samuel H. Kress AAMC Affiliated Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, held an Affiliated Sessions at CAA, presented the first AAMD-hosted AAMC Workshop on provenance and ivory regulations, and celebrated the third year of the ADAA Foundation Curatorial Awards with a reception and private viewing hours of The Art Show. As we look to the future of AAMC & AAMC Foundation and continue to develop its next Strategic Plan, our goals will stay true to our mission. We’ll be working towards expanding our professional development and networking activities, strengthening our advocacy for the field, and taking strides towards a more diversified organization. However, we cannot get there without the support, dedication, and enthusiasm of our members and supporters. Enjoy the Conference, and thank you to everyone, especially our host institutions and supporters, for making this Conference possible.
JUDITH PINEIRO Executive Director AAMC & AAMC Foundation
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AAMC & AAMC FOUNDATION LEADERSHIP & COMMITTEES We extend a sincere thank you to our Board of Trustee members, Emeritus & Ex-Officio Trustees, Executive Committee, and Committee Chairs, and members for their volunteer efforts on behalf of the AAMC & AAMC Foundation. All listings are alphabetical.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES PAOLA ANTONELLI, Senior Curator, Department of Architecture & Design & Director, Research & Development, The Museum of Modern Art ANDREA BAYER, Jayne Wrightsman Curator, Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art GRAHAM C. BOETTCHER, Chief Curator & The William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art, Birmingham Museum of Art CHRISTA CLARKE, Senior Curator, Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum; Executive Committee, Vice President, Programs ALISON DE LIMA GREENE, Curator, Contemporary Art & Special Projects, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston CATHERINE EVANS, Chief Curator, Carnegie Museum; Executive Committee, Vice President, Governance HELEN C. EVANS, Mary & Michael Jaharis Curator of Byzantine Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Executive Committee, Vice President, Finance RITA E. FREED, John F. Cogan & Mary L. Cornille Chair, Art of the Ancient World, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston GLORIA GROOM, Senior Curator, David & Mary Winton Green Curator of 19th c. European Painting & Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago MICHELLE HARGRAVE, Curator, American Federation of Arts LYNDA ROSCOE HARTIGAN, The James B. & Mary Lou Hawkes Chief Curator, Peabody Essex Museum MARIANNE LAMONACA, Associate Gallery Director & Chief Curator, Bard Graduate Center Gallery; Executive Committee, Vice President, Communications MARY G. MORTON, Curator & Head of Department, French Paintings, National Gallery of Art EMILY BALLEW NEFF, Executive Director, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; Executive Committee, President MARINA PACINI, Chief Curator, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art CAROLYN PUTNEY, Chief Curator, Curator of Asian Art (Retired, February 2015), Consulting Curator, Toledo Museum of Art WILLIAM KEYSE RUDOLPH, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Chief Curator & Marie & Hugh Halff Curator of American Art, San Antonio Museum of Art MARK SCALA, Chief Curator, Frist Center for the Visual Arts JON SEYDL, Director of Curatorial Affairs & Curator of European Art, Worcester Art Museum ELIZABETH SMITH, Executive Director, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation GEORGIANA UHLYARIK, Associate Curator, Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario
EMERITUS & EX-OFFICIO TRUSTEES ELIZABETH W. EASTON, Co-Founder & Director, Center for Curatorial Leadership; Past President CAROL S. ELIEL, Curator of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Past President JOHN B. KOEGEL, Founder & Lawyer, The Koegel Group LLP JOHN RAVENAL, Executive Director, deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum; Past President GEORGE T.M. SHACKELFORD, Deputy Director, Kimbell Art Museum; Past President GARY TINTEROW, Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Past President
2014 – 2015 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CHRISTA CLARKE, Senior Curator, Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum; Vice President, Programs CATHERINE EVANS, Chief Curator, Carnegie Museum; Vice President, Governance HELEN C. EVANS, Mary & Michael Jaharis Curator of Byzantine Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Vice President, Finance MARIANNE LAMONACA, Associate Gallery Director & Chief Curator, Bard Graduate Center Gallery; Vice President, Communications EMILY BALLEW NEFF, Executive Director, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; President
STAFF MEREDITH DEAN, Administrator JUDITH PINEIRO, Executive Director
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COMMITTEE CHAIRS & MEMBERS CAREER SUPPORT COMMITTEE BROOKE DAVIS ANDERSON, Executive Director, Prospect New Orleans ANDALEEB B. BANTA, Curator of European & American Art, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; Career Support Committee, Co-Chair ANDREA BAYER, Jayne Wrightsman Curator, Department of Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Board of Trustees CHRISTA CLARKE, Senior Curator, Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum; Executive Committee Representative, Vice President, Programs; Board of Trustees CAROL S. ELIEL, Curator of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Trustee Emerita CATHERINE L. FUTTER, Louis L. & Adelaide C. Ward Senior Curator of European Arts, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Career Support Committee, Co-Chair GLORIA GROOM, Senior Curator, David & Mary Winton Green Curator of 19th c. European Painting & Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago; Board of Trustees MARY-KAY LOMBINO, Curator of Contemporary Art & Photography, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College RUSSELL LORD, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, New Orleans Museum of Art TRICIA Y. PAIK, Curator of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art ELLEN ROBERTS, Harold & Anne Berkley Smith Curator of American Art, Norton Museum of Art LAUREN ROSS, Curator, Institute for Contemporary Art, Virginia Commonwealth University CLAIRE SCHNEIDER, Independent Curator, Founder & Director, CS1 Curatorial Projects JERRY N. SMITH, Curator of American & European Art to 1950 & Art of American West, Phoenix Art Museum SASHA SUDA, Curator & R. Fraser Elliott Chair of the Prints & Drawings Council, Art Gallery of Ontario
CONFERENCE COMMITTEE NANCY BLOMBERG, Chief Curator & Curator of Native Arts, Denver Art Museum MELISSA BURON, Associate Curator, European Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco TERESA CARBONE, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art & Managing Curator of Arts of the Americas & Europe, Brooklyn Museum CHRISTA CLARKE, Senior Curator, Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum; Executive Committee Representative, Vice President, Programs; Board of Trustees ALISON DE LIMA GREENE, Curator, Contemporary Art & Special Projects, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Board of Trustees SANDRA Q. FIRMIN, Director & Chief Curator, Colorado University Art Museum; Conference Committee, Co-Chair HILLIARD TODD GOLDFARB, Associate Chief Curator & Curator of Old Masters, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts C. GRIFFITH MANN, Michael David-Weill Curator in Charge, Department of Medieval Art & The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Conference Committee, Co-Chair JULIE PIEROTTI, Associate Curator, Dixon Gallery & Gardens JOSEPHINE SHEA, Curator, Edsel & Eleanor Ford House STACI STEINBERGER, Assistant Curator, Decorative Arts & Design, Los Angeles County Museum of Art BART THURBER, Associate Director for Collections & Exhibitions, Princeton University Art Museum
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FINANCE & AUDIT COMMITTEE & FUNDRAISING INITIATIVES RENE PAUL BARILLEAUX, Chief Curator & Curator of Art After 1945, McNay Art Museum GRAHAM C. BOETTCHER, Chief Curator & The William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art, Birmingham Museum of Art; Fundraising Initiatives, Chair; Board of Trustees HELEN C. EVANS, Mary & Michael Jaharis Curator of Byzantine Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Finance & Audit, Chair; Executive Committee, Vice President, Finance; Board of Trustees LYNDA ROSCOE HARTIGAN, The James B. & Mary Lou Hawkes Chief Curator, Peabody Essex Museum; Board of Trustees SOYOUNG LEE, Associate Curator, Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art MARY G. MORTON, Curator & Head of Department, French Paintings, National Gallery of Art; Board of Trustees PETER SCHERTZ, Jack & Mary Ann Frable Curator of Ancient Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts JON SEYDL, Director of Curatorial Affairs & Curator of European Art, Worcester Museum of Art; Board of Trustees ELIZABETH A. SMITH, Executive Director, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; Board of Trustees
GOVERNANCE & NOMINATING COMMITTEE CHRISTA CLARKE, Senior Curator, Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum; Executive Committee, Vice President, Programs; Board of Trustees JOHN COFFEY, Deputy Director & Curator of American & Modern Art, North Carolina Museum of Art ALISON DE LIMA GREENE, Curator, Contemporary Art & Special Projects, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Board of Trustees CAROL S. ELIEL, Curator of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Governance & Nominating Committee, Co-Chair; Trustee Emerita CATHERINE EVANS, Chief Curator, Carnegie Museum; Governance & Nominating Committee Co-Chair; Executive Committee, Vice President, Governance GEORGE T.M. SHACKELFORD, Deputy Director, Kimbell Art Museum; Trustee Emeritus MARTHA TEDESCHI, Deputy Director for Art & Research, Art Institute of Chicago GEORGIANA UHLYARIK, Associate Curator, Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario; Board of Trustees
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE SHARON MATT ATKINS, Vice Director of Exhibitions & Collections Management, Brooklyn Museum C.D. DICKERSON, Curator of European Art, Kimbell Art Museum; Marketing & Communications Committee, Co-Chair SUSAN FRANK, Associate Curator for Research, The Phillips Collection BENJAMIN HICKEY, Curator of Collections & Exhibitions, Masur Museum of Art MARIANNE LAMONACA, Associate Gallery Director & Chief Curator, Bard Graduate Center Gallery; Marketing & Communications Committee Co-Chair; Executive Committee, Vice President, Communications; Board of Trustees MEREDITH MALONE, Associate Curator, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis KERRY OLIVER-SMITH, Curator of Contemporary Art, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida SARAH ROBERTS, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Painting & Sculpture, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art SARAH SCHLEUNING, Curator of Decorative Arts & Design, High Museum of Art LEE VEDDER, Independent Curator 7
MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE EMILY A. BEENY, Associate Curator, Norton Simon Museum ADRIANA GALLEGOS, Chief Curator, Museo Arocena MADHUVANTI GHOSE, Alsdorf Associate Curator of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan & Islamic Art, Art Institute of Chicago MICHELLE HARGRAVE, Curator, American Federation for the Arts; Board of Trustees LAUREN OLIVIA HAYNES, Associate Curator, Permanent Collection, The Studio Museum in Harlem CHIYO ISHIKAWA, Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art & Curator of European Painting & Sculpture, Seattle Art Museum; Membership Committee, Co-Chair MARIANNE LAMONACA, Associate Gallery Director & Chief Curator, Bard Graduate Center Gallery; Executive Committee Representative, Vice President, Communications; Board of Trustees AMBER LUDWIG, Curatorial Assistant, Honolulu Museum of Art SARAH KELLY OEHLER, Gilda & Henry Buchbinder Associate Curator of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago WILLIAM KEYSE RUDOLPH, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Chief Curator & Marie & Hugh Halff Curator of American Art, San Antonio Museum of Art; Board of Trustees MARK SCALA, Chief Curator, Frist Center for Visual Art; Membership Committee, Co-Chair; Board of Trustees ELSA SMITHGALL, Curator, The Phillips Collection THAYER TOLLES, Marica F. Vilcek Curator of American Paintings & Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art GEORGIANA UHLYARIK, Associate Curator, Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario; Board of Trustees MICHELLE JOAN WILKINSON, Museum Curator, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture
PRIZE COMMITTEE ALISON AMICK, Curator, Oklahoma City Museum of Art MICHELLE HARGRAVE, Curator of Exhibitions, American Federation of Arts; Board of Trustees NATALIE MAULT, Independent Curator MARINA PACINI, Chief Curator, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; Board of Trustees MARISA PASCUCCI, Curator of Collections, Boca Raton Museum of Art CAROLYN PUTNEY, Chief Curator, Curator of Asian Art (Retired, February 2015), Consulting Curator, Toledo Museum of Art; Prize Committee, Chair; Board of Trustees JANIS STAGGS, Associate Director for Curatorial & Publications, Neue Galerie New York
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE WILLIAM BREAZEALE, Curator, Crocker Art Museum ALISON CHANG, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design BETH CITRON, Curator, Modern & Contemporary Art, Rubin Museum of Art CHRISTA CLARKE, Senior Curator, Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum; Executive Committee Representative, Vice President, Programs; Board of Trustees CLAUDIA EINECKE, Independent Curator MIRANDA LASH, Curator of Contemporary Art, Speed Art Museum HEATHER MACDONALD, Program Officer, The Getty Foundation; Professional Development Committee, Co-Chair JEN MERGEL, Robert L. Beal, Enid L. Beal & Bruce A. Beal Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Professional Development Committee, Co-Chair MARINA PACINI, Chief Curator, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; Board of Trustees MARISA PASCUCCI, Curator of Collections, Boca Raton Museum of Art TANYA PAUL, Isabel & Alfred Bader Curator of European Art, Milwaukee Art Museum JENNIFER SCANLAN, Independent Curator JONATHAN STUHLMAN, Senior Curator of American, Modern & Contemporary Art, Mint Museum of Art PATRICIA WATTS, Founder & Curator, Ecoartspace KENNETH WAYNE, Independent Curator
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F O U N D E D
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The Art Dealers Association Foundation Curatorial Awards were established in 2012, to support yearly fellowships for a curator in a preWorld War II field and a curator in a post-World War II field. The awards are intended to help museums advance deserving projects by providing critical funding for research and development of an exhibition. The Art Dealers Association of America Foundation (ADAA Foundation) and the Association of Museum Curators Foundation (AAMC Foundation) have announced the 2014 recipients.
Radical Seafaring Andrea Grover, Curator of Special Projects at the Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY Mary Mattingly (American. Born 1978) The Water Pool Project, 2009 30 × 100’ barge. Photo Mike Nagel
World on the Horizon: Swahili Arts Across the Indian Ocean Allyson Purpura, Senior Curator and Curator of the Arts of Africa at the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Zanzibar stamp issued in 1913, depicting a dhow. UK/Zanzibar PO [public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. From Abdul Sheriff, “Brotherhood of the Sea,” in Cultures of the Indian Ocean, 1998.
Art Dealers Association of America
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CONFERENCE AGENDA
SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2015 OPTION 1 1:00 PM
TOUR OF BARD GRADUATE CENTER MARIANNE LAMONACA, Associate Gallery Director & Chief Curator, Bard Graduate Center Gallery; AAMC Executive Committee, Vice President, Communications; Marketing & Communications, Co-Chair 3:30 PM
TOUR OF THE CLOISTERS MUSEUM AND GARDEN C. GRIFFITH MANN, Michel David-Weill Curator in Charge, Department of Medieval Art & The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; AAMC Conference Committee, Co-Chair
MONDAY, MAY 11, 2015
BROOKLYN MUSEUM Sessions will take place in the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium Special exhibition galleries (4 & 5) will be open from 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM & 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM 8:00 AM – 8:45 AM
SKINNER SPONSORED BREAKFAST RECEPTION Beaux-Arts Court 9:00 AM
WELCOME ARNOLD LEHMAN, Shelby White & Leon Levy Director, Brooklyn Museum
OR OPTION 2 1:00 PM
TOUR OF THE SCULPTURECENTER HOLLY STANTON, Exhibition & Programs Manager, SculptureCenter 3:30 PM
TOUR OF QUEENS MUSEUM LARISSA HARRIS, Curator, Queens Museum
9:30 AM
AAMC WELCOME & KEYNOTE INTRODUCTION EMILY BALLEW NEFF, Executive Director, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; AAMC President, Board of Trustees 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
KEYNOTE ADDRESS TOM FINKELPEARL, Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2015 1:00 PM
TOUR OF THE HIGH LINE MELANIE KRESS, High Line Art Curatorial Fellow & RACHEL ADAMS, Associate Curator, UB Art Galleries, Buffalo 1:00 PM NEWARK MUSEUM
AAMC BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING by invitation only
Trustees Room, Victorian Ballantine House (National Historic Landmark), Newark Museum 4:00 PM — 7:00 PM NEWARK MUSEUM
SOTHEBY’S SPONSORED RECEPTION HOSTED AT THE NEWARK MUSEUM Charles W. Engelhard Court
WELCOME ADDRESS STEVEN KERN, Director, Newark Museum 16
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
PANEL: SHAPING COLLECTIONS: ACQUISITIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL PRIORITIES Organizer TERESA A. CARBONE, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art & Managing Curator of Arts of the Americas & Europe, Brooklyn Museum; AAMC Conference Committee Member Moderator & Panelist RICHARD ASTE, Curator of European Art, Brooklyn Museum Panelists JANET BLYBERG, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Research & Publishing, Peabody Essex Museum WENDY KAPLAN, Department Head & Curator, Decorative Arts & Design, Los Angeles County Museum of Art RICHARD B. WOODWARD, Curator of African Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
12:30 PM – 2:00 PM
4:15 PM – 5:00 PM
KEYTOURS VACATIONS SPONSORED LUNCH
MEMBERS’ MEETING & BOARD ELECTIONS
Beaux-Arts Court
EMILY BALLEW NEFF, Executive Director, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; AAMC President, Board of Trustees JUDITH PINEIRO, Executive Director, AAMC
During lunch, AAMC will have tables designated for first-time Conference attendees & emerging curators to encourage networking amongst these colleagues.
2:00 PM – 2:30 PM
AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE PRESENTATION MICHELLE HARGRAVE, Curator of Exhibitions, American Federation of Arts; AAMC Prize Committee Member; Board of Trustees 2:45 PM – 4:15 PM
CASE STUDY: CURATORS & TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES Organizer SHARON MATT ATKINS, Vice Director for Exhibitions & Collections Management, Brooklyn Museum; AAMC Marketing & Communications Committee Member Moderator & Panelist KEVIN STAYTON, Chief Curator, Brooklyn Museum Panelists SAM BRENNER, Interactive Media Developer, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum RUTH COHEN, Senior Director, Education Strategic Initiatives, Director, Center for Lifelong Learning, American Museum of Natural History CATHERINE DEVINE, Chief Digital Officer, American Museum of Natural History SARA DEVINE, Manager of Audience Engagement & Interpretive Materials, Brooklyn Museum GREG HERRINGSHAW, Assistant Curator in charge of Wallcoverings, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum MALIA SIMONDS, Arts Program Manager, Bloomberg Philanthropies
5:00 PM
END OF SESSIONS 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
ART DEALERS ASSOCIATION FOUNDATION SPONSORED MEMBERS’ RECEPTION HOSTED AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM Martha A. & Robert S. Rubin Pavilion and Lobby 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
CIRCLE DONOR DINNER by invitation only
TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2015
THE BRONX MUSEUM OF THE ARTS Sessions will take place in the Lower Gallery Galleries will be open from 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM 8:45 AM – 9:15 AM
BONHAMS SPONSORED BREAKFAST RECEPTION South Wing Atrium 9:30 AM
WELCOME ALLISON CHERNOW, Director of External Affairs, The Bronx Museum of the Arts
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CONFERENCE AGENDA (CONT’D) 12:30 PM – 1:00 PM
MENTORSHIP PROGRAM PRESENTATION ANDALEEB B. BANTA, Curator of European & American Art, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; AAMC Career Support Committee, Co-Chair 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM
LUNCH & COMMITTEE MEETINGS South Wing Atrium & Lower Gallery During lunch there will be tables arranged for Committee meetings. If you are not a Committee member, but are interested in becoming one, please join the Committee meeting of your choosing.
2:15 PM – 3:45 PM
PANEL: CURATORIAL PRACTICE AND THE EDUCATIONAL TURN 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
PANEL: IS MOVING OUTSIDE OF THE MUSEUM WALLS THE 21ST CENTURY SCULPTURE PARK? Organizer & Moderator RACHEL ADAMS, Associate Curator, UB Art Galleries, Buffalo Panelists ANDRÉE BOBER, Director, Landmarks, University of Texas at Austin NORA LAWRENCE, Curator, Storm King Art Center GORDON MONTGOMERY, Vice President, Marketing & Public Affairs, Art Institute of Chicago AARON OTT, Public Art Curator, Albright-Knox Art Gallery 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM
CURATORIAL SLAMS: PART I Introduction BENJAMIN M. HICKEY, Curator of Collections & Exhibitions, Masur Museum of Art; AAMC Curatorial Slam Co-Chair; Marketing & Communications Committee Member Presenters CHAD ALLIGOOD, Curator, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, “State of the Art: Findings and Futures” RAMEY MIZE, Anne Lunder Leland Curatorial Fellow, Colby College Museum of Art, “Young Curators: Art in the Making” ASHLEE WHITAKER, Curator of Religious Art, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, “Visions of Vishnu: Icons, Idols(?) and iPads in the Museum Gallery Experience”
Organizer & Moderator CHRISTA CLARKE, Senior Curator, Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum; AAMC Executive Committee, Vice President, Programs, Board of Trustees Panelists ALLISON AGSTEN, Curator of Public Engagement, Hammer Museum NANCY BLOMBERG, Chief Curator & Curator of Native Arts, Denver Art Museum XERXES MAZDA, Deputy Director, Engagement, Royal Ontario Museum 3:45 PM – 4:15 PM
CURATORIAL SLAMS: PART II Presenters MARK D. MITCHELL, Associate Curator of American Art & Manager of the Center for American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Putting ‘Life’ into American Still Life” RENATA STEIN, Curator, Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History, “Stepping Forward: The Leo Baeck Institute’s Art Digitization Project” STACI STEINBERGER, Assistant Curator, Decorative Arts & Design, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Hanging Out Our Sign: Building a New Graphic Design Collection at LACMA;” AAMC Conference Committee Member 4:15 PM
CLOSING REMARKS & THANK YOU EMILY BALLEW NEFF, Executive Director, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; AAMC President, Board of Trustees JUDITH PINEIRO, Executive Director, AAMC 4:30 PM
CONFERENCE CONCLUDES 18
SPONSORS & SUPPORTERS Thank you to the following Sponsors & Supporters for their dedication & enthusiasm for the 2015 Conference & Meeting:
LEAD CORPORATE & FOUNDATION SPONSORS
SPONSORS
SUPPORTERS Bard Graduate Center Brooklyn Museum The Bronx Museum of the Arts The Cloisters Museum and Garden
High Line Newark Museum Queens Museum SculptureCenter
The 2015 Annual Conference & Meeting would not be possible without the support of the following individuals: Rachel Adams Richard Aste Sharon Matt Atkins Holly Block Nancy Blomberg Carol Blunda Melissa Buron Teresa Carbone Mary Ceruti Allison Chernow Christa Clarke Lauren Click Alison de Lima Greene
Catherine Evans Helen C. Evans Sandra Q. Firmin Hilliard Todd Goldfarb Robert Hammond Larissa Harris Benjamin Hickey Ruba Katrib Steven Kern Melanie Kress Marianne Lamonaca Bethanne Lanteri Arnold Lehman
C. Griffith Mann Julia Meech Emily Ballew Neff Julie Pierotti Carolyn Putney Laura Raicovich Josephine Shea Kevin Stayton Staci Steinberger Tomoko Takahashi Bart Thurber John C. Weber Susan Weber
The AAMC Foundation is immensely grateful to the following for their year-round support of our mission and members: AAMC Circle Donors Art Dealers Association of America Samuel H. Kress Foundation
Henry Luce Foundation Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation The Walton Family Foundation 19
AAMC FOUNDATION CIRCLE DONORS ABOUT THE CIRCLE LEVELS The Circle levels are open to all individuals. However, only current & retired AAMC members are eligible for the Curator’s Leadership Circle.
Circle level donors are our most dedicated supporters, whose funding helps further the organization’s mission. PRESIDENT’S CIRCLE Agnes Gund Frank Stella Alice Walton
Gary Wasserman John C. Weber
LEADERSHIP CIRCLE Frances Beatty Emily Braun Eli & Edythe Broad Hiram Butler James Cohan Sue Stubbs Cutler Lisa Dennison Helen C. Evans Linda Ferber Billy & Jennifer Frist Mr. & Mrs. Alain Goldrach Peter Goulds Michael Govan
Mr. & Mrs. Michael J. Horvitz Alice & Nahum Lainer Frank Lloyd Ed Marquand Cynthia Hazen Polsky & Leon Polsky Emily Rauh Pulitzer Pamela K. & William A. Royall, Jr. Elizabeth Smith Marion Boulton Stroud
CURATOR’S LEADERSHIP CIRCLE Dita Amory Brooke Anderson Paola Antonelli Colin B. Bailey Stephanie Barron Andrea Bayer Graham C. Boettcher Christa Clarke Julia Courtney Elliott Bostwick Davis Elizabeth W. Easton Carol S. Eliel Catherine Evans Charlotte Eyerman Alison de Lima Greene Gloria Groom Lynda Roscoe Hartigan 20
Mary Tavener Holmes Frederick Ilchman Norman Kleeblatt Marianne Lamonaca Mary G. Morton Emily Ballew Neff Jordana Pomeroy John B. Ravenal Mark Scala George T.M. Shackelford Lowery Stokes Sims Cindi Strauss Ann Temkin Gary Tinterow Stephan Wolohojian Ann Yonemura
President’s Circle ($5,000 & above annually) ·· Invitation to a private lunch & exhibition tour with the AAMC President ·· Invitation to attend the Annual Circle Donor Dinner ·· Complimentary admission to the Annual Conference & surrounding events ·· Invitations to programs & special events, as accessibility permits ·· Subscription to AAMC’s e-newsletter ·· Recognition of support The President’s Circle supports, in part, AAMC’s Mentorship Program. Leadership Circle ($2,500 annually) ·· Invitation to attend the Annual Circle Donor Dinner ·· Complimentary admission to the Annual Conference & surrounding events ·· Invitations to programs & special events, as accessibility permits ·· Subscription to AAMC’s e-newsletter ·· Recognition of support The Leadership Circle supports, in part, AAMC’s Professional Development activities. Curator’s Leadership Circle ($500 annually) ·· Invitation for one to attend the Leadership Circle Dinner ·· Complimentary admission to the Annual Conference & surrounding events ·· Invitations to programs & special events, as accessibility permits ·· Subscription to AAMC’s e-newsletter ·· Recognition of support
AAMC INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS March 10, 2014 – April 1, 2015
Academy Art Museum Ackland Art Museum Addison Gallery of American Art Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery Arkansas Art Center Art Gallery of Greater Victoria The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky Asia Society and Museum The Baltimore Museum of Art The Barnes Foundation Bemis Center for Contemporary Art Birmingham Museum of Art Boston Athenaeum Brandywine River Museum Memphis Brooks Museum of Art California African American Museum Michael C. Carlos Museum Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University Cincinnati Art Museum Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute The Cleveland Museum of Art Colby College Museum of Art Cornell Fine Arts Museum Crocker Art Museum Cunningham Memorial Library and University Art Gallery Currier Museum of Art Davis Museum and Cultural Center deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park Delaware Art Museum Denver Art Museum Dixon Gallery & Gardens The Drawing Center Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia Frick Art and Historical Center The Frick Collection Frist Center for the Visual Arts Frye Art Museum Fuller Craft Museum J. Paul Getty Museum Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Hammer Museum of Art Harvard Art Museums Henry Art Gallery Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens Hood Museum of Art The Hyde Collection The Jewish Museum Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Kimbell Art Museum Long Beach Museum of Art Los Angeles County Museum of Art McKissick Museum Mead Art Museum Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University The Menil Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Mississippi Museum of Art MIT List Visual Arts Center Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Mount Holyoke College Art Museum Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University Nasher Sculpture Center National Gallery of Art National Gallery of Canada The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College Newark Museum North Carolina Museum of Art Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Orange County Museum of Art Palm Springs Art Museum The Palmer Museum of Art The Parrish Art Museum Peabody Essex Museum The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Philadelphia Museum of Art Phoenix Art Museum Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University Polk Museum of Art Portland Art Museum Portland Museum of Art Norman Rockwell Museum San Antonio Museum of Art Santa Barbara Museum of Art Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art Seattle Art Museum Sheldon Museum of Art Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago Smith College Museum of Art Smithsonian American Art Museum Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas Studio Museum in Harlem Telfair Museums Toledo Museum of Art UC Berkeley Art Museum of Art and Pacific Film Archive UB Art Gallery Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art The Andy Warhol Museum Washington County Museum of Fine Arts Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Whitney Museum of American Art Wichita Art Museum Williams College Museum of Art Worcester Art Museum Yale Center for British Art 21
C O N N E R • RO S E N K R A N Z 19th & 20th Century American Sculpture
LLC
Henry Kirke Brown (1814-1886)
PANTHER AND CUBS, c. 1850-55, bronze on custom wood base, 9 ⅞ x 18 ⅝ x 7 ¾ inches; 2 x 22 x 11 ¼ inches (base), marked: Ames Mfg. Co. / Founders / Chicopee / Mass (right rear edge, self base)
This highly naturalistic group evolved from a work inspired by Brown’s 1848 visit to Michigan’s Mackinac Island, where he was able to study Native Americans firsthand. As evidenced by Brown’s letters to his wife Lydia, he was much affected by the demise of the Indian and in 1949 he modeled a now lost, but very likely lifesize group titled Indian and Panther. A classicized male nude representing an Indian raises his club to crush the snarling panther crouched below—a work that may be seen to represent the threatening encroachment of settlers on territories of America’s indigenous tribes. The small-scale Panther and Cubs evolved from this earlier composition and retains the imagery of reaction to threat, in this instance a mother protecting her young. 19 East 74th Street, New York, NY 10021, (212) 517-3710 www.crsculpture.com info@crsculpture.com by appointment
Thomas Anshutz (1851 – 1912)
Woman Reading at a Desk, c. 1912 Oil on canvas, 26 x 24 in., signed lower right: Thos Anshutz
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Andrea Branzi Campana Brothers Wendell Castle Byung Hoon Choi Paul Cocksedge Front Design Misha Kahn Shiro Kuramata Joris Laarman Nendo Ettore Sottsass Marcel Wanders Lebbeus Woods
Conservation Journals from Maney Publishing To read these journals online, or for more information about how to submit, subscribe or recommend to your library, please visit the journal homepages as detailed below.
Studies in Conservation Published on behalf of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) Studies in Conservation is the premier journal for the conservation of historic and artistic works. The journal publishes on a range of subjects including examination methods for works of art, new research in the analysis of artistic materials, mechanisms of deterioration, advances in conservation practice, issues in display and storage and much more.
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Journal of the American Institute for Conservation Published on behalf of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) The Journal of the American Institute for Conservation publishes technical studies, research papers, treatment case studies and ethics and standards discussions relating to the broad field of conservation and preservation of historic and cultural works.
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Journal of Paper Conservation Published on behalf of the International Association of Book and Paper Conservators (IADA) Journal of Paper Conservation is one of the leading international journals on paper conservation. It publishes scientific as well as non-scientific articles which focus on skills transfer, practical ideas, information on new materials and equipment, ongoing projects and reports on the work of the International Association of Book and Paper Conservators.
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Benefiting the Wilmington Institute Library: N.C. WYETH (AMERICAN 1882-1945) "I STOOD LIKE ONE THUNDERSTRUCK, OR AS IF I HAD SEEN AN APPARITION" oil on canvas, 40 1/2 x 30 in. Sold for $435,750
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Norman Lewis
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100 ELEVENTH AVENUE @ 19TH NEW YORK, NY 10011 212.247.0082 MICHAELROSENFELDART.COM Norman Lewis (1909-1979), Night Walk #2 (detail), 1956, oil on canvas, 66 x 34 inches / 167.6 x 86.4 cm, signed
Hiram Dwight Torrey, 1863
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1806 Chestnut Street Philadelphia PA 19103 215 563 4887 www.schwarzgallery.com Art Dealers Association of America; Art and Antiques Dealers League of America; CINOA 1806 Chestnut Street Philadelphia PA 19103 215 563 4887 www.schwarzgallery.com Art Dealers Association of America; Art and Antiques Dealers League of America; CINOA
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WE BELIEVE ART HISTORY SHOULDN’T WEIGH YOU DOWN.
The Getty Foundation’s Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative (OSCI) provided support to eight museums to rethink the museum collections catalogue for the digital age. All of these catalogues are now available online free of charge. Learn more about OSCI at getty.edu/foundation.
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· Walker Art Center
A World of Art, Research, Conservation, and Philanthropy.
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University of Notre Dame Press
S E V E N T E E N T H - C E N T U RY
EUROPEAN DRAWINGS I N M I DW E S T E R N C O L L E C T I O N S
The Age of Bernini, Rembrandt, and Poussin Edited by
SHELLEY PERLOVE and GEORGE S. KEYES ISBN 978-0-268-03843-4 • trim 9x12 • 320 pages • $150.00 cloth / SALE $105.00 Includes 109 catalogue entries with numerous comparative images Receive a 30% conference discount with sale code “NDAAMC15” Order online at undpress.nd.edu or by telephone at 773.702.7000 Sale code valid through July 31, 2015
AAMC & AAMC FOUNDATION: AWARDS & PROGRAMS (listed alphabetically by program)
ADAA FOUNDATION CURATORIAL RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT AWARDS Established in 2012, the ADAA Foundation Curatorial Awards grant support, through AAMC, to one curator in each of the pre- and post-World War II fields. The Awards are of great importance to AAMC’s members, as indicated by the over 100 applicants in just three years. We applaud the ADAA Foundation’s generosity in providing outside support for essential curatorial endeavors. 2012 Award Recipients Lexi Lee Sullivan, Assistant Curator, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Walking Sculpture Natalie A. Mault, Curator, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Visual Blues 2013 Award Recipients Jane Dini, Assistant Curator, American Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Art of American Dance Pamela McClusky, Curator of Art of Africa & Oceania, Seattle Art Museum, Disguise: Masks and Global African Art 2014 Award Recipients Andrea Grover, Curator of Special Projects, Parrish Art Museum, Radical Seafaring Allyson Purpura, Senior Curator & Curator of African Art, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, World on the Horizon: Swahili Arts Across the Indian Ocean The AAMC Foundation expresses its gratitude to the ADAA Foundation for their funding of the Curatorial Awards.
AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE With the announcement of the 2014 Awardees, AAMC will have honored more than 100 curators for their outstanding work in catalogues, essays, articles, and exhibitions. The fifteen 2014 Awardees represent thirteen institutions. The prizes, as they are informally known, are the only of their kind by which curators directly honor the work of their colleagues. The 2015 Nominations will open this fall/winter.
CONFERENCE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIPS The AAMC Foundation was delighted to award thirty-one curators Travel Fellowships to attend the 2015 Annual Conference & Meeting. Begun in 2006, the Travel Fellowships are awarded to junior curators and curators with little or no funding allocated for professional development. The applications open in January/February each year, and are available on the AAMC website. The AAMC Foundation is grateful to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation for their support of the Conference Travel Fellowship Program.
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CONNECTING FOR CAREER SUPPORT Designed to meet the needs of curators at any level, AAMC offers one-on-one private career support counseling sessions during the annual conference. Applications are requested from those seeking and/or offering advice, and are vetted by the Career Support Committee. Once paired, the two individuals arrange a mutually agreed upon time to meet. A call for applications is typically sent in February/March.
SAMUEL H. KRESS FOUNDATION/AAMC AFFILIATED FELLOWSHIP AT THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME The Samuel H. Kress Foundation/AAMC Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome provides essential funding for curators to develop projects that require research in Rome, Italy, and is intended to honor exceptional curatorial vision and advance deserving projects. The 2014-2015 Fellow, Hilliard Todd Goldfarb, Associate Chief Curator and Curator of Old Masters, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, will further his research on Faith, Death and Eternal Life in the Art of Poussin (working title) and the 2015-2016 Fellow, Judith Mann, Curator, European Art to 1800, Saint Louis Art Museum, will advance her study for her project, Painting on Stone, 1520-1800. The AAMC is thankful to have partners, such as the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and American Academy in Rome, that share our organization’s mission.
MENTORSHIP PROGRAM The AAMC & AAMC Foundation Mentorship Program reinforces our mission to foster the professional development of curators at all levels. The Program is a 12-month engagement, partnering five to eight junior curators with established ones to help guide the former in their career development. Additionally, the mentees and mentors receive travel funding support, tailored webinars, a Career Support Committee Liaison dedicated to each pairing, and an annual reception; and the mentors also receive a program stipend. The program is a greatly rewarding experience for all those involved. Applications for the 2016-2017 Program will open in 2015. The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation generously supports, in part, the Mentorship Program.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WEBINARS In the past 12 months, AAMC hosted four professional development webinars. This webbased platform allows members to log in, listen, and participate in a program no matter where they are located. Recent webinars have included Working with Living Artists: A Roadmap to Navigate Commissions, Interpretation, and Contracts; Curating from the Outside; Both Sides of the Board; and How Curatorial Projects Get Funded: Navigating the Institutional Machine. All our webinars are recorded and are accessible to members at artcurators.org. 37
PANEL DESCRIPTIONS & PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES MONDAY, MAY 11, 2015 WELCOME ARNOLD LEHMAN, Shelby White & Leon Levy Director, Brooklyn Museum
Thank you to the 2015 AAMC Conference & Meeting participants. Listed below, in order of appearance, are session descriptions and speaker biographies.
SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2015 WELCOME STEVEN KERN, Director, Newark Museum Steven Kern was appointed seventh director of the Newark Museum in 2013. Before joining the Newark Museum, Kern served as Executive Director of the Everson Museum since 2008 where he initiated and led a successful campaign for the Museum’s community engagement that is responsive to the community’s needs. Prior to joining Everson, Kern was Director of The William Benton Museum of Art, Connecticut State Art Museum, University of Connecticut. He has also served as Curator of European Art at the San Diego Museum of Art; Curator of Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA; and Curator of European Art and Exhibitions, and Acting Director, Museum of Fine Arts and George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, Springfield, MA. Kern holds an M.A. in the History of Art from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and two B.A. degrees in French Language and Literature, and Art History, from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Kern earned both B.A. degrees with honors and was cited as a Commonwealth Scholar. He graduated from Amherst magna cum laude.
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Arnold Lehman has served as Director of the Brooklyn Museum, one of the oldest and largest fine arts collections in the nation, since 1997. His first official act as Director was to march in Brooklyn’s West Indian Labor Day Parade. Since then, he has prioritized both the individual visitor’s experience and the community’s engagement with the Museum (and the Museum’s relevance to the community) through the presentation of innovative exhibitions and reinstallations of the permanent collection; highly successful public programs that address the diversity of the collection and the community; active support for and participation of Brooklynbased artists; and an ongoing major capital program that has greatly enhanced the accessibility of the Museum and the preservation of its collections. Prior to his leadership in Brooklyn, Dr. Lehman (Ph.D, M.Phil., Yale University) was Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art for almost two decades, and Adjunct Professor of the History of Art at Johns Hopkins University. He has served as the President of the Association of Art Museum Directors and, from 2008 to 2011, was the Chair of the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG) of New York City, representing 33 major cultural institutions. He has since been reelected to the CIG position. In addition, he now serves as Co-Chair of the Arts and Culture Transition Committee for New York City’s Mayor.
AAMC WELCOME & KEYNOTE INTRODUCTION EMILY BALLEW NEFF, Executive Director, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; AAMC President, Board of Trustees Emily Ballew Neff, Ph.D. is the President of the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) and Executive Director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. For nearly two decades she served as the first Curator of American Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where she established a significant presence for the museum in the field of American art, growing
the museum’s collections by more than 30 percent, organizing more than 20 exhibitions at the museum and coordinating 14 traveling exhibitions from other institutions. Neff organized several major exhibitions while in Houston including the award-winning American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World, which received praise for its innovative approach to exhibiting colonial American art in a global context, and The Modern West: American Landscapes, 18901950, a show of more than 100 paintings and photographs that examined the relationship between the American West and modernism. Before her recent appointment at the Memphis Brooks, Neff served as the Director and Chief Curator of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma. Neff holds a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from Rice University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Neff is a recent Fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) in New York City, and currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian’s American Art (journal) and the Clyfford Still Museum.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS TOM FINKELPEARL, Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Tom Finkelpearl is the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. In this role he oversees city funding for nonprofit arts organizations across the five boroughs and directs the cultural policy for the City of New York. Prior to his appointment by Mayor Bill de Blasio, Commissioner Finkelpearl served as Executive Director of the Queens Museum for twelve years starting in 2002, overseeing an expansion that doubled the museum’s size and positioning the organization as a vibrant center for social engagement in nearby communities. He also held positions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, working on the organization’s merger with the Museum of Modern Art, and served as Director of the Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program. Based on his public art experience and additional research, he published a book, Dialogues in Public Art (MIT Press), in 2000. His second book, What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation (Duke University Press, 2013) examines the activist, participatory, coauthored aesthetic experiences being created in contemporary art. He received a B.A. from Princeton University (1979) and an M.F.A. from Hunter College (1983).
PANEL: SHAPING COLLECTIONS: ACQUISITIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL PRIORITIES Shaping collections is one of the great challenges and rewards of curatorial work. Increasingly, curators are charged with giving acquisitions a strategic focus and directing acquisitions towards broader institutional goals. Developing resources, building donor and trustee support, defining the relationship between acquisitions and existing collections, assessing markets and opportunities, and considering the connection between acquisitions and audiences are only some of the issues involved with the development of collections. Spanning a wide range of organizations, fields, and approaches, this session will invite members to consider models that embrace the idea that institutional collections should be shaped towards specific initiatives, even in some cases towards specific communities. The issues involved will engage curators with collection-development responsibilities on a variety of scales and in any field. In discussing their initiatives and projects, panelists will address the relationship between acquisitions and broader institutional activities. The questions raised have wide application: How can strategic acquisitions reintroduce and revitalize long-standing institutional priorities? Can the introduction of a new emphasis on acquisition works by global, emerging, or racially and ethnically diverse artists have an impact on the expansion and diversification of audience? How can income from judicious deaccessions be used successfully to redirect collecting priorities? How can crosscollection/collaborative acquisition initiatives heighten the visibility of institution-wide collecting goals? Can the acquisition of 39
individual destination objects have an impact on programmatic goals? When, why and how should institutions consider the redirection of their collecting priorities? Organizer TERESA A. CARBONE, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art & Managing Curator of Arts of the Americas & Europe, Brooklyn Museum; AAMC Conference Committee Member The holder of a doctorate from CUNY’s Graduate Center, Teresa A. Carbone joined the Brooklyn Museum in 1985 and since 2005 has overseen the American art holdings as the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art. She was co-curator of Eastman Johnson: Painting America (1999), and was awarded the Henry Allen Moe Prize for the accompanying catalogue. Carbone served as project director for American Identities: A New Look (2001), an innovative reinstallation of the Museum’s American art galleries. As principal author of the two-volume American Paintings in the Brooklyn Museum: Artists Born by 1876, she was awarded the College Art Association’s 2006 Alfred H. Barr Prize, and a publication prize from the Association of Art Museum Curators. Carbone curated the major exhibition Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties (2011), and won The Alice, the inaugural publication prize awarded by Furthermore for the accompanying catalogue. She co-curated John Singer Sargent Watercolors (2013), and is currently the co-curator of Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties. In 2014, Carbone was the recipient of the prestigious Lawrence A. Fleischman Award for Scholarly Excellence in the Field of American Art, presented by the Smithsonian Institution’s Archive of American Art.
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Moderator & Panelist RICHARD ASTE, Curator of European Art, Brooklyn Museum Richard Aste is the Brooklyn Museum Curator of European Art. As the former Associate Curator of European Art at Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, he organized El Greco to Goya: Masterpieces of Spanish Painting from the Prado, The Journey to Impressionism, Masterpieces of European Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce, and The Age of Rodin. At the Brooklyn Museum, he has organized Behind Closed Doors: Art in the Spanish American Home, 1492–1898 and is currently organizing Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World, which opens at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, TX, in June 2015. He has contributed to Giulio Romano: Master Designer (Hunter College Art Gallery, NY) and Venus and Love: Michelangelo and the New Ideal of Beauty (Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence), among others. Aste received his B.A. from the University of Michigan, his M.A. from Hunter College, and his M.Phil. from the CUNY Graduate Center. Panelists JANET BLYBERG, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Research & Publishing, Peabody Essex Museum Janet Blyberg is Assistant Curator for Exhibitions, Research & Publishing at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Salem, MA, and is currently working on two upcoming exhibitions: American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood (2015), and Asia in Amsterdam (2016). She has served as manager for a grant-based project to process and catalogue the Veldman-Eecen Collection of historic Indian-export textiles recently acquired by PEM. Before joining the PEM in 2012, Blyberg worked as Research Associate at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, where over the course of her fifteen-year tenure she worked in several departments, including the Publishing Office, the Department of Photographs, and Special Projects in Modern Art. She assisted with a number of major exhibitions, and contributed to several important publication projects, including Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set (2002); My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz (2011); and the forthcoming catalogue raisonné, Mark Rothko: The Works on Paper. Blyberg holds a B.A. in History and Fine Arts from Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, and received her M.A. in Museum Studies from the George Washington University, Washington, DC.
WENDY KAPLAN, Department Head & Curator, Decorative Arts & Design, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Wendy Kaplan has been at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) since 2001. Previously, she held curatorial positions at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University in Miami, Glasgow Museums in Scotland, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. A leading expert on late nineteenthto mid-twentieth-century design, she has authored, co-authored, or edited many books on the subject such as California Design, 1930-1965: “Living in a Modern Way” (2011), The Arts & Crafts Movement in Europe and America: Design for the Modern World (2004), Leading “The Simple Life”: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain (1999), Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1996), Designing Modernity: The Arts of Reform and Persuasion, 1885-1945 (1995), The Arts and Crafts Movement (1991; French edition 1999), and “The Art that is Life”: The Arts and Crafts Movement in America (1987; reprint 1998), as well as organized major exhibitions on these subjects. Together with LACMA Director Michael Govan, she was co-curator for the 2013 exhibition The Presence of the Past: Peter Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA. The recipient of many fellowships, most notably the Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome, she has also twice received the prize for the year’s most outstanding publication given by the Art Libraries Society of North America. RICHARD B. WOODWARD, Curator of African Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Richard Woodward is the Founding Curator of the African art collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). Since its inception in 1977, he has guided the development of the collection, which now includes more than 1,000 works of art. A VMFA staff member since 1975, Woodward has held senior administrative positions in the museum for more than 30 years. In 2000 he served as Interim Director, and then as Senior Deputy Director for Architecture and Design, for overseeing planning and construction of the VMFA’s award winning expansion and sculpture garden that substantially increased gallery space for the collections and exhibitions. Woodward earned a B.A. in Art History at Rutgers University, where he concentrated on Early Christian, Byzantine, and Medieval Art, and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Virginia, with a focus on 19th & 20th c. art.
AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE PRESENTATION MICHELLE HARGRAVE, Curator of Exhibitions, American Federation of Arts; AAMC Prize Committee Member; Board of Trustees Michelle Hargrave is a Curator of Exhibitions at the American Federation of Arts (AFA) where she works with internationally renowned collections, institutions, and curators in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia to initiate, develop, and implement traveling art exhibitions. She manages all curatorial aspects of domestic and international multi-venue exhibitions, and her current projects cover fine arts, design, and decorative arts over the past five hundred years, ranging from old master paintings to export Chinese porcelain to modern design to fashion. She also spearheads the AFA’s China Initiative, working with museums in the U.S. and China, the Chinese Association of Museums, and the American Alliance of Museums to foster Sino-U.S. exhibition collaborations. Prior to joining the AFA in 2011, as Associate Curator at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City, she worked on exhibitions such as William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain; James Athenian Stuart: the Rediscovery of Antiquity; Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties; and Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry. She has an M.A. from the Bard Graduate Center in the History of Decorative Arts, Design & Culture.
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exhibitions. In 2012, she co-organized GO: a community-curated open studio project (2012) with Shelley Bernstein. In 2014, she organized Swoon: Submerged Motherlands, as well as the Brooklyn presentation of Ai Weiwei: According to What?. This summer she will organize an exhibition of work by FAILE, a collaboration between Brooklynbased artists Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller. Before her move to Brooklyn, Atkins was the Assistant Curator at the Currier Museum of Art. There, she was responsible for modern and contemporary art and organized exhibitions from the collection as well as traveling loan shows including Andy Warhol: Pop Politics and Spotlight New England: Kirsten Reynolds. Atkins received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Art History from Rutgers University.
CASE STUDY: CURATORS & TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES Technology is a common presence in museums today, and museums regularly put resources behind developing digital engagement tools to enhance the visitor experience. Such initiatives often have strong support from many parties, and in particular, through Bloomberg Philanthropies and their Bloomberg Connects digital engagement initiative, which supports “the development of state-of-the-art technology, from mobile applications to immersive galleries and other dynamic tools, designed to transform the visitor experience, encouraging interaction and exploration of cultural institutions onand off-site.” Benefiting from this program are several New York City institutions, with each developing a project that speaks to the unique needs of their audiences. The session will tackle the motivation behind Bloomberg’s initiative and the importance of technology as they view it; provide case studies from museum representatives at three grantee institutions—Brooklyn Museum, Cooper Hewitt, and the American Museum of Natural History; and conclude with an open discussion on these projects and the curatorial role in developing technology initiatives. Organizer SHARON MATT ATKINS, Vice Director for Exhibitions & Collections Management, Brooklyn Museum; AAMC Marketing & Communications Committee Member Since joining the Brooklyn Museum in 2009, Atkins has coordinated exhibitions devoted to Andy Warhol and Norman Rockwell, and has facilitated numerous other special
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Moderator & Panelist KEVIN STAYTON, Chief Curator, Brooklyn Museum Since Kevin Stayton joined the Brooklyn Museum in 1980, he has held a number of positions, including Chair of the Department of Decorative Arts, and has organized a number of major exhibitions. Appointed Chief Curator in 2001, he supervises all curatorial activities and programming. Considered one of the leading scholars in the field of Decorative Arts, Stayton is a graduate of Ohio State University and was awarded an M.A. in Art History and an M.Phil. from Yale University, where he was a Research and Exhibitions Assistant at the Yale University Art Gallery. Stayton was an Adjunct Professor at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts. He has also been a member of the faculty committee of Sotheby’s Works of Art program and has taught at Columbia University and in the Cooper Hewitt/Parsons Master’s Program. He has contributed catalogue essays and authored scholarly articles, and he is the author of Dutch by Design: Tradition and Change in Two Historic Brooklyn Houses. Panelists SAM BRENNER, Interactive Media Developer, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Sam Brenner joined the Cooper Hewitt in 2014 as the fifth member of Cooper Hewitt Labs, the museum’s in-house digital strategy and software development team. As the Interactive Media Developer, Sam designs interfaces and writes code to make the Museum’s collection easily available over the internet through user-friendly web pages and
a developer-friendly API. These interfaces power the Museum’s new in-gallery interactive experiences, including multitouch collection-browsing tables and a room-sized wallpaper visualizer. Sam received his M.P.S. in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University and B.F.A. in New Media Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
constituent relationship management systems, and a number of apps, including its flagship app, Explorer, sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Version 2 of Explorer will launch in December 2015.
RUTH COHEN, Senior Director, Education Strategic Initiatives, Director, Center for Lifelong Learning, American Museum of Natural History
Sara Devine is the Manager of Audience Engagement & Interpretive Materials at the Brooklyn Museum. She is co-leading the Museum’s Bloomberg Connects visitor experience initiative, which will provide visitors access to museum staff via mobile technology. A vocal visitor advocate, her expertise lies in crafting accessible and engaging visitor experiences. She works with curators, designers, educators, technologists, and visitor services staff on all aspects of interpretation and engagement. Sara received her M.A. in Museum Studies from The George Washington University and B.A. in Classical Civilization from Emory University. Sara was previously a Senior Content Developer and Project Manager at Hilferty, a museum planning and exhibition design firm in Ohio, where she developed comprehensive interpretive plans and exhibitions for a wide variety of museums. She has also worked as the Assistant Curator, Special Exhibitions at Monticello and as a Curatorial Assistant at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
As Senior Director, Cohen is responsible for the co-development and management of the Museum’s education division, a $20 million division with almost 100 staff, and as Director, responsible for all of the Museum’s out-ofschool education, pre-K to undergraduate, and adult lifelong learning programs. Cohen is the former president of PENCIL, a New York City based non-profit that improves the resources of public schools through civic involvement and private support, and has twenty-five years of management experience in the non-profit sector in education and the arts at such institutions as the Sundance Institute and Playwrights Horizons. Cohen holds a B.A. from Binghamton University, and has completed executive education at the Harvard Business School of Social Enterprise. She has presented on the American Museum of Natural History’s programs and strategies at numerous annual convenings including the American Association of Museums, the Visitors Studies Association, NYCMER, the Association of Science and Technology Centers, among others. She has served as a Mentor for the National Council for Research on Women Young Leadership Initiative, and is on the board of One Story literary journal and the How I Decide Foundation. CATHERINE DEVINE, Chief Digital Officer, American Museum of Natural History Catherine joined the American Museum of Natural History in 2012 as Chief Digital Officer. She is responsible for the Museum’s digital strategy, which is focused on driving transformation of the visitor experience, onsite and online. Catherine’s role builds on a long career in digital and technology strategy and delivery, including significant staff and consulting roles at America Online (AOL), eBay, and PBS. To date, the Museum has implemented and launched an enterprise content management system, responsive website, personalization, ticketing and
SARA DEVINE, Manager of Audience Engagement & Interpretive Materials, Brooklyn Museum
GREG HERRINGSHAW, Assistant Curator in charge of Wallcoverings, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Greg Herringshaw is the Assistant Curator in charge of the Wallcoverings Department at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. This is the largest collection of wallcoverings in the United States, numbering over 10,000 pieces, which date from the late 17th c. to the present. He has been working at the Museum for over twenty years and is responsible for the continued growth and preservation of the collection, ongoing research, and making the collection accessible to staff and scholars. He has curated two exhibitions at the Cooper Hewitt including Wall Stories: Children’s Wallpaper and Books and Artist-Designed Wallpapers and has a special interest in early 20th c. American wallpaper. He received an M.A. in Museum Studies from the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY, NY, 1991, and a B.F.A. in Studio Arts from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, 1987.
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MALIA SIMONDS, Arts Program Manager, Bloomberg Philanthropies Malia Simonds manages grant programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies that support arts and culture. As part of the Arts team, she is responsible for developing, implementing and evaluating initiatives like Bloomberg Connects, a global commitment that provides funding for the development of technology to increase access to cultural institutions and enrich the visitor experience. Malia began her career at the Public Art Fund, an organization that presents temporary exhibitions of contemporary art in public spaces in New York City, where she gained experience in non-profit management, fundraising, and events. In addition, Malia’s interest in using technology to provide access to art was developed here as she created the organization’s first website in 1999 and oversaw the digitization of 30 years of project archives. In 2005, she joined Mayor Bloomberg’s Administration as Deputy Director of Special Projects and Community Events where she led a team to produce mayoral and citywide events and manage projects for the First Deputy Mayor. She has also held positions at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. She graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, with a B.A. in Art History and spent her junior year at the Université de la Bourgogne studying French in Dijon, France.
MEMBERS’ MEETING & BOARD ELECTIONS EMILY BALLEW NEFF, Executive Director, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; AAMC President, Board of Trustees See bio on pages 36-37 JUDITH PINEIRO, Executive Director, AAMC & AAMC Foundation Judith Pineiro joined the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) & AAMC Foundation as Executive Director in January 2014. Prior, she was an External Affairs consultant for clients such as Art in General and Louise Blouin Media. Other positions Pineiro has held, in her over twenty years of experience in the visual arts sector, include Director at the Affordable Art Fair U.S.; Associate Development Director, Institutional Advancement at the Museum of Arts and Design; and Account Manager in the Museum Services Department at 44
Christie’s. She began her career in the decorative arts field at galleries in New York and Los Angeles. Judith received a B.A. in Art History; a B.A. in Journalism/Mass Media; a Certificate in Curatorial Studies; and an M.A. in Art History; all from Rutgers University. Judith also served as a visual arts re-grant panelist for two years with the Brooklyn Arts Council, and currently serves on ArtTable’s Professional Development and Membership Committees.
TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2015 WELCOME ALLISON CHERNOW, Director of External Affairs, The Bronx Museum of the Arts Allison Chernow is the Director of External Affairs at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, overseeing the Development and Communications departments. Previously, as Director of Development at the Katonah Museum of Art for seven years, she supervised fundraising, membership, marketing, and public relations as well as special events and public programs. In her twelve years as Executive Producer of Cultural Programs at WNYC AM & FM, Chernow oversaw over 100 national and local broadcasts annually and was the principal liaison with major NYC cultural institutions. While at WNYC, she was awarded an Armstrong Radio Award, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Arts and Humanities Award, and an American Women in Radio and Television Pinnacle Award. She received a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. from New York University. Chernow is currently on the Board of Directors for Rehabilitation Through the Arts, an innovative arts program working in five major prisons in New York State.
Contemporary Art Center in Portland, OR, where she curated four exhibitions relating to the crossover between art and architecture. She has independently curated exhibitions at The Contemporary Austin, testsite in Austin, Greene Exhibitions in Los Angeles, David Cunningham Projects and Queens Nails Projects, both in San Francisco. From 20062008, she was the co-director of Lloyd Dobler Gallery in Chicago with Patricia Courson. She is Co-Founder and Curator for the upcoming Field Constructs Design Competition in Austin, TX, and a contributing writer for artforum.com, Art Papers, Arts + Culture Texas, Modern Painters, and Texas Architect. Panelists ANDRÉE BOBER, Director, Landmarks, University of Texas at Austin
PANEL: IS MOVING OUTSIDE OF THE MUSEUM WALLS THE 21ST CENTURY SCULPTURE PARK? Lately, more and more museums are reimagining their ideas of a sculpture park. In fact, they are reimagining what it means to be a public museum and this leads into showcasing works beyond the museum walls. “Engaging the community” and “audience building” are phrases constantly rolling off the tongues of museum directors, curators and educators. How do we meet the challenge of engaging a community? Enter: the 21st century sculpture park. Or should I say, exit the museum, please, and enter the sculpture park. Or, today it can be a park, university campus, or one can just drive by a billboard. These are places where play is appropriate, touching is sometimes encouraged, and where “plop-art” is found but is perhaps rarer and much different than it once was. Organizer & Moderator RACHEL ADAMS, Associate Curator, UB Art Galleries, Buffalo Rachel Adams is the newly appointed Associate Curator at the UB Art Galleries in Buffalo, NY. She graduated with an M.A. in Exhibition & Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2010 and a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006. As Associate Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs at The Contemporary Austin from 2011-2013, she curated several exhibitions by international artists including Amie Siegel, Seher Shah, Ragnar Kjartansson, Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, and Devon Dikeou. She was the 2014-2015 Curator-in-Residence at Disjecta
Andrée Bober is the founding director of Landmarks, the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin. At Landmarks, she introduced a collection of public works by artists that include Mark di Suvero, David Ellis, Ben Rubin, Monika Bravo, Sol LeWitt, James Turrell, Casey Reas, Nancy Rubins and Marc Quinn. She also established and curates Landmarks Video, an ongoing series of video art that has featured a different artist every month since 2010. Prior to Landmarks, Bober led the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, through the successful completion of its Zaha Hadiddesigned facility, for which the architect won the 2004 Pritzker Architecture Prize. As Deputy and then Acting Director, she curated the exhibitions SPRAWL (2002) and Susan Unterberg: A Retrospective (2004). Bober studied Art History and museology at The University of Texas at Austin, practiced painting conservation in Vienna, Austria, and earned an M.A. in Arts Administration from Columbia University, Teacher’s College in NY. She has led curatorial and administrative projects for institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Bard Graduate Center for the Study of Decorative Arts. NORA LAWRENCE, Curator, Storm King Art Center Nora Lawrence is Curator at Storm King Art Center. She has organized and co-organized exhibitions for Storm King, including Zhang Huan: Evoking Tradition (2014); Outlooks: Virginia Overton (2014), Thomas Houseago: As I Went Out One Morning (2013), David Brooks (2013), and Storm King’s 2012 exhibition, Light and Landscape, which was
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a finalist for the International Association of Art Critics award for Best Project in a Public Space. She is co-organizing Storm King’s 2015 exhibitions: Lynda Benglis: Water Sources and Outlooks: Luke Stettner. Lawrence has co-authored several publications, including a forthcoming monograph on Mark di Suvero (2015), Zhang Huan: Evoking Tradition (2014), Monet’s Water Lilies (2009), Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today (2008), and Armando Reverón (2007), and contributed an essay to the awardwinning MoMA volume The Modern Woman (2010). She has taught courses at MoMA, the School of Visual Arts, and the University of Southern California. A graduate of Pomona College, Nora Lawrence received her M.A. in Art History from the University of Southern California, and an M.Phil. from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. GORDON MONTGOMERY, Vice President, Marketing & Public Affairs, Art Institute of Chicago Gordon is the Vice President, Marketing and Public Affairs, at the Art Institute of Chicago. There he leads museum teams that encompass marketing, PR, membership, annual fund, communications, graphics, and digital. He is charged with increasing overall museum attendance, introducing new audiences, promoting exhibitions, and developing a deeper engagement with the Museum that leads to lasting relationships. He spent most of his career at the global advertising agency Leo Burnett, where he worked on and led some of the world’s most iconic brands (including Procter & Gamble, Sony, Motorola, the United States Postal Service, Gateway and Maytag). He then shifted gears and worked for two start-ups in the high tech and retail restaurant spaces. In moving to the Art Institute, he has been able to combine his background in classic branding and, more recently, fast-paced, low-budget creativity. Gordon received his B.A. in History and Political Science from Amherst College and is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management’s KMI program.
produce great public art capable of empowering individuals, generating stronger neighborhoods, and establishing Western New York as a critical cultural center. Ott’s curatorial philosophy is grounded in the notion that the shared landscape of our lives is abundant with the opportunity to create, experience, and talk about notions of beauty, culture, originality, and innovation. He is committed to art that is generous in spirit, conceptually affirmative, and participatory in format. Before joining the Albright-Knox, Ott worked as an independent curator on such projects as Inside the Outside at the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) in Chicago and a consultant on projects including Social Paper at Columbia College Chicago. Formerly, Ott was a Curator of the Collection at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Interim Exhibitions Director at HPAC, Curator at the Elmhurst Art Museum, and Director of the David Weinberg Gallery in Chicago. He received his M.A. from UIC and his undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati.
CURATORIAL SLAMS: PART I
AARON OTT, Public Art Curator, Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Introduction BENJAMIN M. HICKEY, Curator of Collections & Exhibitions, Masur Museum of Art; AAMC Curatorial Slam Co-Chair; Marketing & Communications Committee Member
Aaron Ott joined the Albright-Knox in April 2014 as Curator of Public Art where he spearheads the AK Public Art Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to create spaces of dialogue where diverse communities have the ability to socially engage and cooperatively
Benjamin M. Hickey is Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Masur Museum of Art. He earned his Master’s Degree from the University of California, Riverside. Prior to working at the Masur he held positions with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Canisius
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College, the Arts Council of Buffalo and Erie County, and the California Museum of Photography. His most recent exhibition, Shared Earth: The Ancient Mounds Project, was a collaboration with the photographer Jenny Ellerbe and staff at Poverty Point, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
curatorial studies. Her research interests span the gamut of religious iconography and interpretations in visual and material culture, as well as western regional American art. Her writings have been included in several publications, most recently Sacred Gifts: The Religious Art of Carl Bloch, Heinrich Hofmann, and Frans Schwartz published in 2014.
Presenters CHAD ALLIGOOD, Curator, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Chad Alligood’s ongoing work at Crystal Bridges focuses on the collection, presentation, and scholarship of American art, with an emphasis on the period from World War II to now. Born and raised in Perry, GA, Alligood earned a B.A. in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University, his M.A. in Art History from the University of Georgia, and has completed his Ph.D. coursework at City University of New York (CUNY). Alligood came to Crystal Bridges from Cranbrook Art Museum where he held the Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellowship. RAMEY MIZE, Anne Lunder Leland Curatorial Fellow, Colby College Museum of Art Ramey Mize received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and her Master’s degree in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. In her current capacity as the Anne Lunder Leland Curatorial Fellow at the Colby College Museum of Art, she has curated the exhibition Lois Dodd: Cultivating Vision (2014) and contributed the essay “Whistler and the Canvas of Fashion” to the forthcoming exhibition catalogue entitled Whistler and the World. She has also spearheaded a number of diverse campus and community outreach schemes, including the formation of a Student Advisory Board to the Colby Museum as well as “Young Curators,” the first-ever teen program in the history of the institution.
MENTORSHIP PROGRAM PRESENTATION
ASHLEE WHITAKER, Curator of Religious Art, Brigham Young University Museum of Art
PANEL: CURATORIAL PRACTICE AND THE EDUCATIONAL TURN
Ashlee Whitaker works as a curator at the Brigham Young University (BYU) Museum of Art in Provo, UT, where she primarily specializes in religious art. Prior to BYU, she was Associate Curator and Registrar at the Springville Museum of Art in Springville, UT. Other museum experience includes an internship at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Ashlee graduated from BYU summa cum laude, with a B.A. in Art History and an M.A. in Art History and
ANDALEEB B. BANTA, Curator of European & American Art, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; AAMC Career Support Committee, Co-Chair Banta is a specialist in Renaissance and Baroque art of Europe, with a focus on old master drawings. Prior to her appointment at Oberlin, Banta was Assistant Curator of Prints & Drawings at the National Gallery of Art, and has held positions at the Morgan Library & Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Banta received her Ph.D. from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and received her B.A. from Vassar College.
Recent museological trends over the past decade or so have seen a move towards audience participation in meaning construction as part of a broader educational turn in curation. Many museums are now shifting from the traditional model of the museum as primarily a place of interpretive display and stewards of collections to accommodate social interaction and showcase diverse forms of creativity. In some cases, the boundaries between the 47
historically distinct professions of curator and educator have blurred; an especially apt example of this can be seen with the rise of the curator of public engagement. This panel will explore the relationship between curating and education today, considering compelling examples of constructive practices from a range of museums. How is the curatorial role shifting or evolving in the education turn? What are constructive models for collaboration between curatorial and education in engaging audiences? How does interest in visitor experience and participatory projects impact the curatorial profession? How does the position of Engagement curator operate in an in-between state between curatorial, education, and audience? Museum professionals from diverse backgrounds will offer a range of approaches and perspectives on the subject. Organizer & Moderator CHRISTA CLARKE, Senior Curator, Arts of Global Africa, Newark Museum; AAMC Executive Committee, Vice President, Programs, Board of Trustees Christa Clarke is Senior Curator, Arts of Global Africa, at the Newark Museum. Prior to her appointment at Newark in 2002, she served as the first Curator of African Art at the Neuberger Museum of Art. A specialist in historic and contemporary African art, Clarke has organized numerous exhibitions ranging from men’s fashion in Africa to Nigerian modernism. In addition to her curatorial positions, Clarke has been a fellow at the Clark Art Institute and held teaching appointments at the NYU Abu Dhabi, University of Pennsylvania, George Washington University, Rutgers University, Purchase College, and Drew University. Clarke’s publications include Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display (co-edited with Kathleen Berzock; 2010), which examines the impact of museum practice on the formation of meaning and public perception of African art, and African Art in the Barnes Foundation: The Triumph of l’Art Nègre and the Harlem Renaissance (2015). Clarke received a B.A. in English and Art History from the University of Virginia, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Maryland. She is currently a Vice President of the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) and was a 2012 fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL).
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Panelists ALLISON AGSTEN, Curator of Public Engagement, Hammer Museum Allison Agsten was appointed Curator of Public Engagement at the Hammer Museum in 2010 to lead a new curatorial program focused on creating an exchange between visitors and the museum through works of art. Public Engagement launched with an intensive, yearlong residency with Machine Project that included twenty on-site projects and culminated in a widely recognized summary report as well as the acquisition of a sound piece made within the program. In addition to curating many other projects of a variety of genres, Agsten oversees a Hammer board comprised of artists. She is presently organizing the museum’s first Public Engagement Partnership with Art + Practice, a new art and social services non-profit in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Through the partnership, the Hammer will curate off-site exhibitions until fall of 2016 while also providing mentorship to the emerging organization, which was established by artist Mark Bradford and co-founders Allan DiCastro and Eileen Harris Norton. Previously, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Agsten spearheaded a number of projects related to accessibility including Reading Room, a first-of-its-kind program to make rare LACMA publications available for free online. She also developed the museum world’s first bilingual (Spanish and English) Twitter accounts. Prior to joining LACMA, Agsten covered the visual and performing arts in CNN’s Los Angeles bureau. NANCY BLOMBERG, Chief Curator & Curator of Native Arts, Denver Art Museum Nancy Blomberg is Chief Curator and Curator of Native Arts at the Denver Art Museum— which includes the arts of Native America, Africa, and Oceania. Prior to coming to Denver, she worked at museums in Los Angeles and Anchorage. She has received numerous grants for research, exhibitions, conservation, and collections management from the NEA, NEH, the National Science Foundation, Henry B. Luce Foundation, IMLS and the National Park Service. She has served as a panelist and reviewer for numerous organizations including the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the NEA, AAM and the NSF. Her research specialties include North American Indian arts and cultures—most notably Navajo textiles. She recently directed the complete re-installation of the American
Indian art galleries at the Denver Art Museum and received the first place award for best permanent gallery from the AAMC. XERXES MAZDA, Deputy Director, Engagement, Royal Ontario Museum As Deputy Director, Engagement, Mazda oversees all elements of the Royal Ontario Museum’s visitor experience, including galleries and exhibitions, school visits, digital, publications, design, front of house, visitor research, diversity, marketing, membership, volunteers and programming for all audiences. This new role is tasked with putting visitors at the heart of all the Museum’s activities and increasing the visibility of the Museum’s research and collections. Prior to this, he was at the British Museum for nine years (2005-2013) as Head of Learning, Volunteers, and Audiences. In this role, he ran a department responsible for the public program, web, volunteers, and interpretation. Between 1992 and 2005, he worked at the Science Museum, London, in various roles, including curating the Communications collections, looking after stored collections and working on exhibitions and galleries. Mazda received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.
CURATORIAL SLAMS: PART II Presenters MARK D. MITCHELL, Associate Curator of American Art & Manager of the Center for American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art Mark D. Mitchell is currently organizing Audubon to Warhol: The Art of American Still Life, which will be the genre’s first major survey since 1981. Embracing audience research and interactive presentation, the exhibition strives to invigorate the appreciation of American still life for a new generation. Mitchell received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 2002 and worked at the Princeton University Art Museum, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth, and the National Academy Museum before joining the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2007. RENATA STEIN, Curator, Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History
of German-speaking Jewry from the 17th c. to its destruction in 1943 and its miraculous rebirth in the past 20 years. From engravings depicting Jewish life in German lands in the 18th c. to abstract works by GermanJewish émigrés in the second half of the 20th c., the works in the LBI Art Collection complement the archival and library holdings as a visual record of German-Jewish history. In addition to being the custodian of the LBI Art Collection, Stein curates two or three exhibitions annually. Among the recent exhibitions were: Destination Shanghai: The European Jewish Community of Shanghai, 1936-1949; Beer, Art and Revolution: Jewish Life in Munich, 1806 to the Present; and Facing History: Portraits from the LBI Art Collection. STACI STEINBERGER, Assistant Curator, Decorative Arts & Design, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; AAMC Conference Committee Member Staci Steinberger is the Assistant Curator for Decorative Arts & Design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where she played a key role in organizing the exhibitions California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way (2011-2012) and The Presence of the Past: Peter Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA (2013), as well as curated Jack Stauffacher: Typographic Experiments (2013). A scholar of modern design with an emphasis on graphics and posters, she contributed to the exhibition catalogue for California Design (2011) as well as A Handbook of California Design (2013). Since 2013, she has served as the project lead for LACMA’s interdepartmental initiative to collect graphic design. She is currently co-curating an exhibition on design and architecture connections between California and Mexico.
CLOSING REMARKS & THANK YOU EMILY BALLEW NEFF, Executive Director, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; AAMC President, Board of Trustees See bio on pages 36-37 JUDITH PINEIRO, Executive Director, AAMC & AAMC Foundation See bio on page 42
Renata Stein has served as Curator of the Leo Baeck Institute (LBI), located at the Center for Jewish History in New York, since 1993. The Institute, with headquarters in New York City and branches in London, Jerusalem and Berlin, documents the history 49
Essential Resources for Artists, Art Historians, Curators, and Critics
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