New York’s Public Art Fund today announced that it has hired Allison Glenn to serve as senior curator. Glenn, a curator and writer with extensive experience in the public-art sector, gained broad acclaim for organizing the pathbreaking 2021 exhibition “Promise, Witness, Remembrance” at Louisville, Kentucky’s Speed Art Museum in honor of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville police in her own apartment during a bungled raid. In her new role, which she will adopt on May 16, Glenn will be responsible for shaping Public Art Fund’s artistic program and for mounting exhibitions in public spaces across the five boroughs of New York City.

“Among her generation, Allison Glenn has emerged as a leading curatorial voice,” said Nicholas Baume, Public Art Fund’s artistic and executive director. “Allison brings the creative and critical thinking of a visionary curator together with a powerful perspective on our artistic moment that is also grounded in scholarship. She’s a champion of artists—and of public art—with deep relationships and a wealth of experience. Her contribution to Public Art Fund and to the field of public art promises to be extraordinary.”

Glenn, a cocurator of the 2023 edition of the Saint Louis multivenue triennial Counterpublic, was previously curatorial senior curator and director of public art at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; associate curator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, where she spearheaded development of the musuem’s outdoor sculpture program; and curatorial associate and publications manager for the fourth edition of the New Orleans triennial Prospect.

“Public Art Fund has been at the forefront of commissioning artists to create dynamic public art for New York City for over four decades,” said Glenn, calling the organization’s history and legacy “immense and impactful.” Lauding Public Art Fund as “charting a new path toward deeper engagements with artists, colleagues, and audiences,” Glenn asserted, “It's an absolute honor to join such an incredible team at this remarkably pivotal moment.”