ALEESA PITCHAMARN ALEXANDER

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. It took place in April 2023.

GM: What was your path to becoming a curator, as well as your current job at the Cantor Arts Center?

APA: I was always artistically inclined as a child, but in high school I became more interested in the long history of art and what others made through my AP Art History class From then on, for better or worse, I knew I wanted to be an art historian. When I ended up at Willamette University, I started interning at the university art museum, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, which was transformative to me. It showed me how art history can be made and remade within an institutional space. After that, I interned at the Art Institute of Chicago, and then started a PhD program in Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 2017-2018 I was a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I got to contribute to two incredible exhibitions while working on my dissertation. During this time, I applied for my job at the Cantor, for which I was then hired. My path was rather straightforward, though it did take a long time and was incredibly difficult. I will also say that though I did work very hard, there was a certain amount of luck involved (as there always is). I don’t want to give the erroneous impression that if you simply follow this course, you can get a job as a curator. Curatorial positions in museums are highly sought after. I understand that I am privileged to hold this role – I never had a “Plan B” in life and I am grateful things worked out the way they did.

GM: Alongside Marci Kwon, you are Founding Co-Director of the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) at the Cantor. How did the initiative come to fruition, and why was it important to the both of you to execute this at a college arts museum in the Bay Area?

APA: Marci started at Stanford in 2016 and shortly after began thinking of what it would mean to start an initiative about Asian American art. When I started at the Cantor in 2018, I came on specifically to serve as the curatorial counterpart – in order to organize exhibitions and build a collection, you need someone working inside the museum who can help lead the institution. (Continued)

Dr Alexander touring East of the Pacific as part of the convening IMU UR2: Art, Aesthetics, and Asian America, Oct. 28-29, Stanford University. Photo credit: Harrison Truong