ASSOCIATION OF ART MUSEUM CURATORS ANNOUNCES 2017 AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE
The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) has announced the recipients of this year’s Awards for Excellence, the organization’s annual prize dedicated to recognizing groundbreaking new scholarship.
AAMC received nearly 120 nominations for the 2017 awards and selected 26 curators for their work on various projects, including exhibitions, catalogues, essays, and digital publications, all staged or published during 2016. AAMC honored the accomplishments of the awardees during a celebration at the International Center of Photography on Sunday, May 7.
“In honoring digital publications for the first time, the AAMC is adding its support to the important contribution curators are making in the digital realm,” said Judith Pineiro, executive director of AAMC and the AAMC Foundation. “It is critical to celebrate advancements in the field, and those curators moving the profession forward through innovations in interpretation and access.”
Founded in 2001, AAMC has more than thirteen hundred members from more than four hundred institutions. AAMC and the AAMC Foundation support the curatorial field by promoting the work of art curators at all stages in their career through opportunities for networking, collaboration, professional development, and career advancement. The AAMC awards have recognized nearly 150 curators since they were established in 2004.
A full list of the awardees are as follows:
Catalogue or Publication Award Categories
Organization with an operating budget under $2 million:
Tracy L. Adler, Johnson-Pote Director at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, for Yun-Fei Ji: The Intimate Universe
Organization with an operating budget of $2–$6 million:
Jessica Moss, consulting curator at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art, for Monster Roster: Existentialist Art in Postwar Chicago
Organization with an operating budget of $6–$15 million:
Melissa Wolfe, curator of American art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, for Subversion & Surrealism in the Art of Honoré Sharrer at the Columbus Museum of Art
Organization with an operating budget of $15–$30 million:
Forrest Mcgill, the Wattis senior curator of South & Southeast Asian art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco for The Rama Epic: Hero, Heroine, Ally, Foe
Organization with an operating budget of more than $30 million:
Sean Hemingway, curator of Greek and Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Carlos A. Picon, the curator-in-charge of Greek and Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both for Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World
Exhibition Award Categories
Organization with an operating budget under $2 million:
Pamela S. Wall, curator of exhibitions at the Gibbes Museum of Art, for “The Things We Carry: Contemporary Art in the South”
Organization with an operating budget of $2–$6 million:
Stacy C. Hollander, deputy director for curatorial affairs, chief curator, and director of exhibitions at the American Folk Art Museum, for “Securing the Shadow: Posthumous Portraiture in America”
Organization with an operating budget of $6–$15 million:
Nancy Kathryn Burns, assistant curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Worcester Art Museum, and Kristina Wilson, associate professor of art history and chair of the department of visual and performing arts at Clark University, both for “Cyanotypes: Photography’s Blue Period” at the Worcester Art Museum
Organization with an operating budget of $15–$30 million:
Anne-Marie Eze, director of scholarly and public programs at Harvard University’s Houghton Library, and Nathaniel Silver, associate curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, both for “Beyond Words: Italian Renaissance Books” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Massemeh Farhad, chief curator and curator of Islamic art at the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery of Art | Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and Simon Rettig, assistant curator of Islamic art at the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery of Art | Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, both for “The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish & Islamic Arts”
Organization with an operating budget of more than $30 million:
Al Miner, assistant curator of contemporary art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Laura Weinstein, the Ananda Coomaraswamy Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art and acting Matsutaro Shoriki Chair, Art of Asia, at the MFA, Boston, both for “Megacities Asia”
Article, Essay, or Extended Catalogue Entry
Stacy C. Hollander, deputy director for curatorial affairs, chief curator, and director of exhibitions at the American Folk Art Museum for “Securing the Shadow: Posthumous Portraiture in America”
Digital Publication Category
Alexandra (Sasha) Suda, curator of European art and the R. Fraser Elliott Chair of the Print and Drawing Council at the Art Gallery of Ontario Toronto, for “The Boxwood Project”
