25 Women Curators Shaking Things Up

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Amanda de la Garza, curator at MUAC, Mexico City.
We all know that, as Beyoncé puts it, girls run the world. That's arguably
especially true in the art world, where many powerful and influential art
advisors, auction house specialists and dealers are all women. And then
there are the curators, whose exhibitions help us to reassess established
figures or bring new ones to light. Curators help build mus eum
collections, or work independently to organize biennials and triennials,
and often publish in magazines and journals as part of their portfolio.
Who is the next Helen Molesworth, recently appointed at the Museum of
Contemporary Art Los Angeles (see Helen Molesworth Hired as Chief
Curator of LA MOCA)? Who might be the future Ann Temkin, who has
headed up the department of painting and sculpture at New York's
Museum of Modern Art since succeeding John Elderfield in 2008?
Keep in mind, too, that the road to the director's office sometimes leads
through the curatorial department. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's
Thomas Campbell, MoMA's Glenn Lowry, and the Walker Art Center's Olga
Viso all served as curators before taking the helm of their institutions.
Heads of major museums tend to be lavishly compensated men, but that's
an issue for another time—see We Asked 20 Women "Is the Art World
Biased?" Here's What They Said (see also The Top 20 Art World Women of
Destroyed by the Taliban,
Resurrected as Hologr...
2014 and The Most Powerful Women in Art Part One).
We polled our colleagues far and wide to come up with this roundup of 25
up-and-coming curators to watch, arranged in alphabetical order. (No
such list is ever complete, so we also welcome your nominations on our
Facebook page.) Maybe you'll see them heading up a department at a
museum near you?
Nancy Adajania, independent curator.
Photo: www.kalaghodaassociation.com
1. Nancy Adajania, Independent Curator, Mumbai
Mumbai-based Nancy Adajania has brought her education in political
science, social communications media and film to an engagement with
contemporary Indian art. She was one of six curators (all women) of
“Roundtable," the ninth Gwangju Biennale in 2012, described as “an openended seri es of collaborations" and including Indian artists like Jangarh
Singh Shyam and Sheba Chhachhi. She has lectured all over Europe, at
venues like Documenta, in Kassel; the Zentrum für Kunst und
Medientechnologie (ZKM), in Karlsruhe; and the Gulbenkian Foundation, in
Lisbon.
Katherine Brinson, curator of contemporary art at the Guggenheim.
Photo: Courtesy of the Guggenheim.
2. Katherine Brinson, Guggenheim Museum, New York
With a museum-wide Christopher Wool retrospective under her belt, as
well as Hugo Boss Prize shows of Hans-Peter Feldmann and Danh Vo,
Brinson has earned her seat at the New York Guggenheim, as well as
organizing shows at the museum's Berlin and Bilbao venues. Through her
work with the museum's Young Collectors council, she also bolsters the
museum's collection of emerging artists, bringing in works by artists such
as Kevin Beasley, Gera rd & Kelly, Agnieszka Kurant, and Adam Pendleton.
Cathleen Chaffee, curator at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
Photo: Courtesy of Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
3. Cathleen Chaffee, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
After stints at the Yale University Art Gallery, MoMA, and the Cleveland
Museum of Art, Chaffee went to Buffalo in fall 2013, replacing Heather
Pesanti (see below). Her new show “Overtime: The Art of Work" (through
May 17) deals with artistic conceptions of labor and includes artists from
Honoré Daumier and Tehching Hsieh to influential New Yorkers Josh Kline
and Agnieszka Kurant. Among those who will be the subjects of upcoming
solo shows are Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Joe Bradley, Michael Rakowitz, and Erin
Shirreff.
Rachel Cook, associate curator at DiverseWorks.
Photo by Naomi Beckwith, courtesy of DiverseWorks.
4. Rachel Cook, DiverseWorks, Houston. Sound art is coming into its own institutionally, especially since the 2013
exhibition “Soundings: A Contemporary Score" at New York's MoMA, and
Rachel Cook is part of that wave: her recent DiverseWorks show
“SonicWorks" featured artists ranging from locals The Art Guys to New
York's Christine Sun Kim and Pauline Oliveros. Since setting up shop there
in 2012, Cook has organized new commissions by artists including Wu
Tsang and Liz Magic Laser. She also pitched in on “The Eleventh Hour,"
which highlighted presenting politically and socially engaged artists from
Rick Lowe to Gorilla Girls Houston and the collective Anti-Trust.
Ruth Estevez, gallery director and curator, REDCAT, Los Angeles.
Photo: Yvonne Venegas.
5. Ruth Estévez, REDCAT, Los Angeles
Director-curator of visual arts at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater
(REDCAT), Bilbao-born Ruth Estevez was previously at Museum of
Contemporary Art Carrillo Gil in Mexico City; while in Mexico she cofounded the nonprofit LIGA, Space for Architecture. At REDCAT, she's
work ed with artists including Pablo Bronstein, Javier Tellez, and Allora &
Calzadilla. Among upcoming projects are “Hotel Theory," a group show
looking at the performance of theory, and, in collaboration with The Getty
Institute, a re-staging of a performance piece by the late Argentinian
artist León Ferrari, who deployed sculpture and poetry as “revolutionary
weapons" against war, political authority and religion.
6. Amanda de la Garza, MUAC, Mexico City
A curator at The University Museum of Contemporary Art since 2012,
Amanda de la Garza Mata has organized a Bataille-inspired group show
studying the foundation of the modern museum as linked to the Reign of
Terror during the French Revolution; a solo devoted to avant-garde
filmmaker Jonas Mekas; and, with Julio García Murillo, “Mina 8. Unidad
Pasta de Co nchos," an exhibition devoted to a controversial coal mine
explosion in northern Mexico. In her free time, she's part of a collective,
Illusory City, that has produced three documentary films on urban issues
and helps to edit publications for Tabasco189 Editions, which illuminates
links between contemporary art and literature.
Jarrett Gregory, associate curator of contemporary art.
Photo: Courtesy of Museum Associates/Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
7. Jarrett Gregory, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
At LACMA since 2011, Gregory organized the recent L.A. iteration of the
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traveling exhibition of French
(see
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previous post, at New York's New Museum, she worked on acclaimed
shows like the inaugural triennial, “Younger than Jesus," and “Ostalgia,"
which brought to light lesser-known Eastern European artists, and she's
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Anna Gritz, curator for film & performance at the South London Gallery.
Photo: Agata Madejska, courtesy of South London Gallery.
8. Anna Gritz, South London Gallery
In charge of film and performance at the 124-year-old nonprofit South
London Gallery, Anna Gritz is cooking up exhibitions devoted to artists
Kapwangi Kiwanga, who draws on academic training for research-based
projects, as well as veteran comic performer Michael Smith. After earning
an MA in curatorial practice at California College for the Arts, she cut her
teeth at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Hayward Gallery, both
in London, and ran programs at New York's apexart. While writing for
publications like Mousse and frieze d/e, she's got exhibitions in the works
from Ljubljana to Cologne and Southend-on-Sea, where, with Paul C linton,
she's organizing a show about stupidity.
Rujeko Hockley, assistant curator of contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum.
Photo: Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.
9. Rujeko Hockley, Brooklyn Museum
Despite being the museum's assistant curator since just 2012, Hockley
has pitched in on shows devoted to LaToya Ruby Frazier, the Bruce High
Quality Foundation, and artists from the borough (“Crossing Brooklyn: Art
from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond"), as well as the current and hotly
debated Kehinde Wiley show (through May 24). She's a veteran of the
Studio Museum in Harlem and is, believe it or not, working on a UC San
Diego PhD while also serving on panel discussions on Afrofuturism at the
Studio Museum, young curators at the School of Visual Arts, and the
prison-industrial complex at Neue House.
Jamillah James, assistant curator at the Hammer Museum.
Photo: Courtesy of the Hammer Museum.
10. Jamillah James, UCLA Hammer Museum
Having held curatorial positions in New York at the Studio Museum in
Harlem and the Queens Museum before going west to the Hammer,
Jamillah James has helped to organize shows there of artists like Mark
Bradford and Charles Gaines. She's also pitching in on programming with
Bradford's nonprofit Art + Practice, which will bring art and social
services to L.A.'s Leimert Park neighborhood. She told NY Arts magazine
last year that she's into pop and celebrity culture and appreciates that “it
doesn't take itself too seriously—and I think we can all gain something
from that attitude."
Ruba Katrib, curator at SculptureCenter.
Photo: Courtesy of SculptureCenter.
11. Ruba Katrib, Sculpture Center, New York
Since earning and MA in curatorial studies at the powerhouse training
program at CCS Bard in New York's Hudson Valley, Ruba Katrib has
organized US museum debuts for Cory Arcangel and Claire Fontaine, both
at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (see The ICA Miami Will
Build a New Home). At SculptureCenter in Long Island City, New York,
she's helmed projects like the 2014 group show “Puddle, pothole, portal,"
co-curated with artist Camille Henrot, and solos of Radamés “Juni"
Figueroa, Jumana Manna and others. Her writing has been featured in
Artforum, Kaleidoscope, and Mousse, and she's organizing a group show
with her old prof, CCS director Tom Eccles, on Governors Island this
summer.
Naima Keith, associate curator at the Studio Museum.
Photo: Courtesy of the Studio Museum.
12. Naima Keith, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
After starting out as an intern at the Studio Museum, Naima Keith returned
there in in 2011 as assistant curator, fresh off a stint as curatorial fellow
at L.A.'s Hammer Museum, where she assisted with the 2011-12 show
“Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 196 0-1980." She's gotten
attention for shows like “The Shadows Took Shape," looking at
contemporary art through the lens of Afrofuturism, and a survey of
Charles Gaines, whose works probe “the fraught relationship between a
poetics of chance and a politics of radical engagement," according to Art
in America.
Tina Kukielski, independent curator.
Photo: Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art.
13. Tina Kukielski, independent curator, New York
No less a critic than the New Yorker's Peter Schjeldahl called the 2013
iteration of the Carnegie International “strikingly thoughtful," and Tina
Kukielski gets part of the credit, having organized the acclaimed show
along with Daniel Baumann and Dan Byers. (See World's Top 20 Biennials,
Triennials, and Miscellennials). She also organized shows there with
beloved artists working with new technology, like Cory Arcangel and
Antoine Catala, who shows with plugged-in New York gallery 47 Canal.
She's now back in New York, with several projects in the works, including
a group show this summer at James Cohan Gallery.
Alejandra Labastida, associate curator at the University Museum of Contemporary
Art (MUAC).
Photo: frente.com
14. Alejandra Labastida, MUAC (University Museum of Contemporary
Art), México
In 2012, MUAC associate curator Alejandra Labastida snagged the prize in
Istanbul's Akbank Sanat International Curatorial Competition for a Gilles
Deleuze-inspired show, “The Life of Others: Repetition and Survival,"
featuring artists from François Bucher and Tania Bruguera to Artur
Zmijewski. Since setting up shop at MUAC in 2008, she's organized a
number of in-house shows while also helping to organize the Mexican
pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, in 2011. And she's not even finished
with a master's degree in art history and curatorial studies at UNAM
(Universidad Autónoma de Mexico).
Carol Yinghua Lu, independent curator.
Photo: Courtesy of Independent Curators International.
15. Carol Yinghua Lu, independent curator, Beijing
If you loved Christian Marclay's 24-hour video The Clock, you probably
cheered when it won the Golden Lion at the 2011 Venice Biennale; the
artist partly has Beijing-based independent curator Carol Yinghua Lu to
thank, since she served on the jury. With Nancy Adajania (see above) and
four others, she co-curated the 2012 Gwangju Biennale; she also coorganized the 7th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale in 2012, including art stars
like Wang Jianwei, Lee Mingwei, and Zhang Xiaogang. Artistic director and
chief curator at OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), Shenzhen, a
division of the He Xiangning Art Museum, she co-organized with Liu Ding
the show “From the Issue of Art to the Issue of Position: Echoes of
Socialist Realism," which is now on view.
Margot Norton, associate curator at the New Museum.
Photo: Courtesy of the New Museum; photo by Benoit Pailley.
16. Margot Norton, New Museum, New York
Promoted twice since joining the New Museum in 2011, Margot Norton has
organized exhibitions including one by Turner Prize-winner Laure Prouvost
and the museum solo of Judith Bernstein. She's been co-curator of an
eye-popping litany of exhibitions, from the lauded recent Chris Ofili
retrospective (see Chris Ofili's Glittering, Dung-Encrusted Paintings
Return to New York) and the group show “Here and Elsewhere," devoted to
art of the Arab world (see Palestinians and Arabs Hang Tough at the New
Museum). The Columbia curatorial MA grad is looking ahead to a survey
opening this summer of the late Sarah Charlesworth, who, Brian Wallis
wrote in Artforum, “presciently grasped the visual seduction of
photographs."
Heather Pesanti, senior curator at Austin Contemporary.
Photo: Courtesy of Austin Contemporary.
17. Heather Pesanti, Austin Contemporary
The Contemporary Austin is going big with its first large thematic group
exhibition, “Strange Pilgrims," and they've placed it in the hands of
Heather Pesanti. Focusing on the “immersive, participatory, collaborative
and kinetic" and including artists from Charles Atlas and Trisha Baga to
Bruce Nauman and Yoko Ono, it opens in September. While at the AlbrightKnox Art Gallery, in Buffalo, New York, Pesanti organized the well-received
historical survey “Wish You Were Here: The Buffalo Avant-Garde in the
1970s."
Susanne Pfeffer, curator at Fridericianum in Kassel.
Photo: Courtesy of Fridericianum.
18. Susanne Pfeffer, Kunsthaus Fridericianum, Kassel
In what's being called the Post-Internet era, in which images circulate
endlessly and authorship is said to be irrelevant, Pfeffer's 2013-14 show
“Speculations on Anonymous Materials" brought together young artists
like Alisa Baremboym, Oliver Laric, and Timur Si-Qin. While curator at
Berlin's KW Institute for Contemp orary Art, Pfeffer conceived the 2008-09
Hotel Marienbad program, in which artists like Douglas Gordon had a
residency in what resembled a hotel room. She's organized solo shows of
figures as varied as outsider artist Joe Coleman (whom no less than
Charles Manson called “a caveman in a spaceship"), experimental
filmmaker Lutz Mommartz (a film of his was included in the MoMA Polke
retrospective), and scu lptor Richard Serra. Pfeffer will work with artist
Pamela Rosenkranz on the Swiss pavilion at the Venice Biennale, opening
this summer (see The 2015 Venice Biennale List of Artists Is Out–See Our
Exclusive).
Sara Raza, independent curator.
Photo: Courtesy of the Guggenheim.
19. Sara Raza, independent curator, London
The Guggenheim Museum is investing big in widening the global reach of
its collection, with initiatives in Asia and Latin America as well as the
Middle East and North Africa, which is where Sara Raza comes in as the
newest two-year curatorial resident. We'll see her picks at a 2016 show.
As for what those might be, we note that she worked with artists including
Adel Abidin, Wafaa Bilal and Mohammed Kazem at the Maraya Art Centre in
Sharjah when she was adjunct associate curator there; for the 2014
Venice Biennale, she co-curated a show of Saudi Arabian artists at the
Venice Biennale, including Heba Abed, Basmah Felemban, and Saeed
Salem.
Chen Tamir, curator at Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv.
Photo by Yuli Gorodinsky and courtesy of Electronic Beats.
20. Chen Tamir, Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv
The Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement, calling for cultural
boycott of Israeli institutions, has generated copious debate, and CCA Tel
Aviv curator Chen Tamir has contributed a report on the phenomenon,
published recen tly by Hyperallergic (see The Cultural Boycott of Israel
Isn't Solidarity, It's Condescension and Artists for Palestine UK Respond
to JJ Charlesworth's Criticism of the Cultural Boycott of Israel). Besides
her brick-and-mortar shows of artists like Amie Siegel and Tamar Harpaz,
she's also commissioned artworks for viewing on mobile devices on the
CCA's wireless network. If you missed her on a panel at the Armory Show
recently, you can catch her in upcoming talks at the Vera List Center in
New York or at L.A.'s Otis College.
Lumi Tan, associate curator at The Kitchen.
Photo: Courtesy of The Kitchen.
21. Lumi Tan, The Kitchen, New York
Already a veteran of New York's Zach Feuer Gallery and P.S.1
Contemporary Art Center, Kitchen associate curator Lumi Tan has
organized solo exhibitions of artists ranging from Luke Stettner to Chantal
Akerman and produced performances including Danh Vo and Xiu Xiu's
multifarious show “Metal." Tan is no slouch at the writing desk either,
having penned articles for Artforum, Frieze, and The New York Times.
Kelly Taxter, assistant curator at the Jewish Museum.
Photo: Courtesy of the Jewish Museum.
22. Kelly Taxter, Jewish Museum, New York
Before becoming assistant curator at the Jewish Museum in 2013, Kelly
Taxter co-ran Taxter & Spengemann Gallery in New York, for eight years,
fostering talents like Xavier Cha and Andrew Kuo (see Andrew Kuo and
Scott Reeder Opt for Panda Bear Zodiac Sign on Instagram Video). Taxter
must have hit the ground running, as she's already opened “Laurie
Simmons: How We See," the artist's first New York museum solo, now on
view. Besides that, no museumgoer will be able to miss her projects, as
she's overseeing site-specific works in the lobby, with artists like Willem
de Rooij, Chantal Joffee and Valeska Soares on tap.
Stephanie Weber, curator of contemporary art at Lenbachhaus.
Photo: Courtesy of Lenbachhaus.
23. Stephanie Weber, Lenbachhaus, Munich
While at MoMA in New York, Stephanie Weber curated a solo show of Mark
Boulos and film series of Charles Simonds and Christoph Schlingensief, all
the while commissioning performances by Tom Thayer and C. Spencer Yeh
and adding to the collection works by Vito Acconci, VAL IE EXPORT and
Martha Rosler. Since starting at Munich's Lenbachhaus in September,
she's been hard at work on a retrospective of Polish-born feminist artist
Lea Lublin that opens this summer. It includes a thirty-year span of work
in various mediums by the Argentine-French artist, who once stole Marcel
Duchamp's mailbox.
Michelle White, curator, Menil Collection.
Photo: Courtesy of the Menil Collection; Photograph by Eric Hester.
24. Michelle White, Menil Collection, Houston
White took up her post at the Menil after honing her skills at Harvard's
Fogg Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; her endeavors
have been as varied as projects with the Houston collective Otabenga
Jones & Associates (who aim to “teach the truth to the black youth") and
the Richard Serra drawings retrospective that traveled to the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art and New York's Metropolitan Museum of
Art. Among others, Flash Art and Modern Painters have published her
writings.
Mika Yoshitake, assistant curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Photo: Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
25. Mika Yoshitake, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Washington, D.C.
As the Hirshhorn's assistant curator, Yoshitake oversaw the museum's
installation of the traveling show “Ai Weiwei: According to What?" She
earned an AICA-USA award for best show in a commercial gallery
nationally for “Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha" (2012) at Blum &
Poe in Los Angeles, which traveled to Gladstone Gallery in New York, and
has contributed to other high-profile shows like the Guggenheim
Museum's Lee Ufan retrospective and the Museum of Contemporary Art
Los Angeles' exhibition © MURAKAMI.
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Tell us about your background in art and what led you here.
For a couple of years, my father had a gallery in the house we lived in at
the Starnberger See near Munich, Germany. His concept was the
combination of antiques and pop art—mostly prints—which is a period I
remember vividly. I ended up, however, studying finance and investment,
followed by a short career in banking, after which I switched to t he art
world in search of something more fulfilling. In 1989, I first worked for
Galerie Claire Burrus and then Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris, before opening
my own gallery in Munich in 1993, where I focused mainly on New York
painters, some of whom, like Stephen Ellis, Catherine Howe, Antonio
Murado, and Mark Sheinkman, I still represent today. In 1999, I moved the
gallery to New York, and, after 15 successful years there, I decided to
move the gallery to Los Angeles.
Tell us about your first show. Was there a particular moment, good or
bad, that was memorable for you?
My first show was with a sculptor by the name of Mark Mennin in my first
space in Munich. It was a fantastic exhibition, which did surprisingly well,
but I did not have enough money to change the flooring, and the space
had been an office, so you could very clearly see the walking patterns
where the desks had been placed on the carpet. It was like an unintended
site-specific installation. As long as you didn't look at the floor, the art on
the walls looked fabul ous.
How did you settle on your specialty, and what makes your gallery
unique? What is the most challenging part of running a gallery?
I started out concentrating on abstract painting, but over the last 20+
years, I became more and more interested in art that wasn't necessarily
what it looked to be. I now work with a lot of unique or camera-less
photography, which could easily be mistaken for painting o r drawing, and,
on the other hand, I have painters and artists who work exclusively with
paper, whose work is often mistaken for photography or prints. The most
important thing for me is to work with art that will keep a dialogue with
the viewer for a very long time, something that doesn't become part of the
decoration.
Joseph Stashkevetch, Palisade/Scree #1 (2015). Conte crayon on rag paper. Courtesy
of Von Lintel Gallery.
What is your next important show? Tell us why we should come.
The next important show will be Edward Burtynsky's photographs, which
will open on April 25. Edward's work functions on several levels, the way
good art should. His breathtaking and timely images show how nature is
transformed by industry. The beauty of the photographs is often in
tension with the compromised environments they depict.
Edward Burtynsky, Dryland Farming #2, Monegros County, Aragon, Spain (2010).
Chromogenic print. Courtesy of Von Lintel Gallery.
Since you started, what have been the biggest changes in the gallery
market?
I would have to say the biggest changes in the market are its size and the
importance and proliferation of art fairs. Another important change has
been the advent of the Internet. When I started, we wo uld send collectors
transparencies of the work by mail. They would then take time to study
and look at the work. Nowadays, if the artwork doesn't reproduce well on
the screen, it is much harder to sell. We look at thousands of images
every day. The ‘art' of really looking is very hard to find nowadays.
If you were not an art dealer, what would you be doing?
Working with furniture somehow, or racing fast cars.
What inspired your decision to move from New York to Los Angeles?
How has this affected your gallery, and do you plan on any location
changes or expansions in the future?
There is much thought that went into my decision of relocating to LA, but
in the end, it comes down to opportunity. I loved my time in New York, and
it went well, but I just didn't like where the community was heading. The
massiv e increases in real estate prices seem to dictate programming and
our personal lives more and more. In Los Angeles, I saw a bourgeoning art
market with a better quality of life. I was able to find a fantastic gallery in
a prime location (Culver City right next to Blum & Poe) that is roughly
three times as large as my last New York space, but I pay 20% less. I live
in a house a few minutes from the gall ery by car, which has a garden with
a lemon tree and zero noise at night. It doesn't seem like much, but after
having lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, until recently, it is very much
appreciated.
How do you perceive the current Los Angeles art scene in comparison
to New York and other international art capitals?
I am still learning about the LA art scene, but it is refreshingly welcoming
to outsiders. Co llectors, critics, and artists come to see my exhibitions
even if they don't know the artist. I expected very little traffic in the
gallery, but I was completely wrong. The timing here is different, so the
summer tends to be much busier in LA than in New York, where things
seem to slow down significantly after May, only to really resume in
September. I am also surprised at how many visitors we get from New
York and Europe. I think significantly fewer curators from around the
world visit LA than New York, but I also believe that's changing. Most of
all, there is so much potential here. The greater Los Angeles area has a
population in excess of 16 million, and many of them are interested and
eager to learn.
Canan Tolon, installation view (2014). Courtesy of Von Lintel Gallery. Photo by Eamon
Conklin.
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