Ashley James is an American curator. She has worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum. In 2019, she became the first full-time black curator at the Guggenheim.
Ashley James | |
|---|---|
| Education | Columbia University (BA) Yale University (PhD) |
| Occupation | Curator |
| Organization | Guggenheim Museum |
Biography
editJames, who is of Jamaican parentage,[1] earned her bachelor's degree at Columbia University in 2009.[2][3] After Columbia, she worked as an intern at the Studio Museum in Harlem.[4][5] James earned her master's degree at Yale University, where she studied English literature and African American studies.[2][6] While at Yale, she was a co-curator in 2014 at the Yale University Art Gallery of the exhibition Odd Volumes: Book Art from the Allan Chasanoff Collection.[5][7] James was a Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art.[8]
The Brooklyn Museum hired James as an assistant curator of contemporary art in 2017.[6] While at the Brooklyn Museum, she was a "moving force behind the acclaimed exhibition 'Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power.'"[9][10] She was lead curator and it was the largest she had ever worked on before.[5] James was also played a major role in making acquisitions and doing public programming for the museum.[2]
James started as an associate curator of contemporary art at the Guggenheim in November 2019.[9] She is the first black curator to work for the museum full-time.[9] Her debut exhibition, Off the Record, in 2021, featured 13 artists with works "that challenge the presumption of objectivity in historical records, journalism and photography."[11][12]
References
edit- ^ Hyde, Shelby Ying (December 3, 2021). "Celebrating Guggenheim Associate Curator Dr. Ashley James". Harper's Bazaar. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
- ^ a b c "Ashley James named Associate Curator for Contemporary Art". Contemporary And. November 20, 2019. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
- ^ "AitN: November 25, 2019". Columbia College Today. November 25, 2019. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
- ^ Cassell, Dessane Lopez (March 23, 2020). "Meet the NYC Art Community: Ashley James on Working in a Field That "Holds Infinite Possibility"". Hyperallergic. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
- ^ a b c Kerpen, Carrie (October 23, 2018). "You Don't Need to Have All the Answers". Forbes. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
- ^ a b "Ashley James, New Curator at Brooklyn Museum". Department of African American Studies at Yale University. August 18, 2017. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
- ^ Schwartz, Alexis (November 11, 2021). "Ashley James is Rewriting the Terms of Engagement". L’OFFICIEL USA. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
- ^ Fluker, Dominique (November 30, 2019). "Meet Guggenheim's First Black Curator, Ashley James". Forbes. Archived from the original on December 1, 2019. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
- ^ a b c Pogrebin, Robin (November 15, 2019). "Guggenheim Hires First Full-Time Black Curator". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
- ^ Cotter, Holland (September 13, 2018). "Radiant and Radical: 20 Years of Defining the Soul of Black Art". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
- ^ McShane, Julianne (June 24, 2021). "Guggenheim curator Ashley James, sees 'a certain kind of possibility' in new role". NBC News. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
- ^ Harris, Lauren (September 24, 2021). "Q&A: Dr. Ashley James on 'Off the Record' and the limits of documents". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
External links
edit- "Brooklyn Museum's 'Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power'" (video), BRIC TV, October 11, 2018.