Prize Awards Announced

For Immediate Release

ASSOCIATION OF ART MUSEUM CURATORS ANNOUNCES AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE RECIPIENTS

Brooklyn, New York, May 11, 2015– The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) announced today its annual Awards for Excellence for curatorial work in exhibitions, essays/articles, and catalogs in 2014.  Awarded yearly at the AAMC Annual Conference & Meeting, and open to all AAMC members in good standing, the Awards celebrate curatorial excellence and are the only of their kind by which curators honor their own.

Presented to 19 curators this year, their work investigated a wide range of subjects including, Japanese 20^th Century Erotic Art, Cubism, the Latino Presence in American Art, Italian Futurism, Typography, the art of Dominican and Franciscan orders in Renaissance Italy, wooden toys in Sweden, chopine footwear, Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture from Southeast Asia, and African Art, amongst others.  Representing the geographical demographics of AAMC members, Awards were given to curatorial projects produced in New York, Ontario, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Massachusetts, Arizona, Maryland, Maine and Tennessee. 

“It was a rewarding experience to oversee the Awards of Excellence, a program begun at AAMC over ten years ago.” said Prize Committee Chair, Carolyn Putney, Chief Curator, Curator of Asian Art (Retired, February 2015), Consulting Curator, Toledo Museum of Art, AAMC Board of Trustees.  “Celebrating the work of our colleagues and the curatorial profession as a whole is key to the organization’s mission, and it was an honor to be part of the process.”

The awards were formally announced at the AAMC Annual Conference & Meeting on May 11, 2014 at the Brooklyn Museum. A full listing of Awardees follows.  We are grateful for the time and expertise provided by the AAMC Prize Committee and selected jurors who vet the award nominations.

2014 Awards of Excellence

Catalog/Publication

Institution with an operating budget under $4 million

First Place Award

Hannah W. Blunt, Langlais Curator for Special Projects, Colby College Museum of Art, for Bernard Langlais at the Colby College Museum of Art

Honorable Mention

Claire C. Carter, Curator of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, for Covert Operations: Investigating the Known Unknowns

Institution with an operating budget between $4 million and $20 million

Co-First Place

E. Carmen Ramos, PhD, Curator for Latino Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, for Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art

Co-First Place

Susan Weber, Founder and Director, Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, for Swedish Wooden Toys

Honorable Mention

Trinita Kennedy, Curator, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, for Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy

Institution with an operating budget over $20 million

First Place Award

Rebecca Rabinow, Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Modern Art and Curator in Charge of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection

and

Emily Braun, Distinguished Professor, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY and Curator of Leonard A. Lauder’s collection, for Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection

Honorable Mention

John Guy, FSA, Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia, Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia

Article or Essay

Co-First Place

Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator, The Bata Shoe Museum, for Above the Rest: Chopines as Trans-Mediterranean Fashion

Co-First Place

Elizabeth Cleland, Associate Curator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for Recognizing Pieter Coecke van Aelst

Exhibition or Installation

Institution with an operating budget under $4 million

First Place

Michelle Joan Wilkinson, PhD, Director of Collections and Exhibitions, and Curator, For Whom It Stands, Reginald F. Lewis Museum, for For Whom It Stands: The Flag and the American People

Honorable Mention

Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox, c2-curatorsquared, Independent Curators, for StereoType: New Directions in Typography

Institution with an operating budget between $4 million and $20 million

First Place

Trinita Kennedey, Curator, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, for Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy

Co-Honorable Mention

Marina Pacini, Chief Curator, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, for Marisol: Sculptures and Works on Paper

Co-Honorable Mention

Shawn Eichman, Curator of Asian Art, Honolulu Museum of Art, for Modern Love: 20th-Century Japanese Erotic Art

and

Stephen Salel, Robert F. Lange Foundation Assistant Curator of Japanese Art, Honolulu Museum of Art, for Modern Love: 20th-Century Japanese Erotic Art

Institution with an operating budget over $20 million

First Place

Vivien Greene, Senior Curator, 19th- and Early 20th-Century Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, for Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe

Honorable Mention

Kevin D. Dumouchelle, Associate Curator, Arts of Africa & the Pacific Islands, Brooklyn Museum, for Double Take: African Innovations

About the Conference

The 2015 Annual Conference & Meeting will be the 14^th in the organization’s history. The Conference attracts over 350 curators from across the U.S. and Canada. It is the only conference where art curators from every discipline and type of institution meet to discuss issues facing the profession.  The multi-day conference includes a keynote address, President’s welcome, mentorship activities, networking opportunities, professional development workshops, panel discussions, receptions, award announcements, tours of host city cultural institutions, and a full membership meeting. For more information about the event and sponsorship of it, please contact AAMC at aamc@artcurators.org.

About the AAMC

Founded in 2001, the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) has members from over 400 institutions, including representation from all 50 states and 5 provinces. The mission of the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) is to support and promote the work of museum curators by creating opportunities for networking, collaboration, professional development, and advancement. In support of these aims, the AAMC Foundation seeks to heighten public understanding of the curator's role in art museums through professional development programs, awards, and grants.  For more information, please visit www.artcurators.org.

Contact: Judith Pineiro, Executive Director, 212/879-5701, judith.pineiro@artcurators.org

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