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Nancy Spector

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Nancy E. Spector
Born1959 (age 64–65)
NationalityAmerican
EducationSarah Lawrence College (BA)
Williams College (MA)
City University of New York (MPhil)
OccupationCurator
Employer(s)Brooklyn Museum,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Nancy Spector is an American museum curator who has held positions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City and the Brooklyn Museum.[1][2]

Education

Spector graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy from Sarah Lawrence College in 1981. She received an M.A. from Williams College in 1984 and a Master of Philosophy degree in Art History from City University Graduate Center in 1997[3]

Career

Spector was appointed as a Guggenheim curator in 1989.[4] At the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, she has organized exhibitions and retrospectives on or of conceptual photography, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, Richard Prince, Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramovic, Maurizio Cattelan and Tino Sehgal. She also organized the group exhibitions Moving Pictures (2003), Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (2004), and theanyspacewhatever (2008).[5] Under the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, Spector initiated special commissions by Andreas Slominski, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Lawrence Weiner.[6]

Spector was adjunct curator of the 1997 Venice Biennale and a co-curator of the first Berlin Biennale in 1998. In 2007 she was the U.S. Commissioner for the Venice Biennale, where she presented an exhibition of work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres.[7] She has written catalogue essays for exhibitions on Maurizio Cattelan, Luc Tuymans, Douglas Gordon, Tino Sehgal and Anna Gaskell among others.[8]

In 2017, when the White House requested the loan of a Vincent Van Gogh painting, from the Guggenheim collection, Landscape With Snow, Spector suggested instead, America - a sculpture of a gold toilet by Maurizio Cattelan.[9]

Spector is a recipient of the Peter Norton Family Foundation Curators Award[6] and an International Art Critics Association Award.[10] In 2014, she was named one of the top 25 most important women in the art world by Artnet.[11] Additionally, Forbes named Spector on the "40 Women To Watch Over 40" list.[12]

Spector stepped down from her position at the Guggenheim in October 2020.[13][14]

Controversy

On 5th November 2019, the Guggenheim Museum presented a panel entitled, “New Art Histories for Some Kind of Tomorrow”. The panel was moderated by art historian, J. Faith Almiron. The panel explored shifting fault lines in art history and emergent forms of cultural criticism. It was held on the occasion of four overlapping exhibitions overseen by Nancy Spector, Artistic Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator:

  1. Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection;
  2. Simone Leigh: Loophole of Retreat;
  3. Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now (Parts 1 and 2); and
  4. Basquiat’s “Defacement”: The Untold Story,

which collectively featured a number of artists and guest curators of color that was unprecedented in the museum’s history.[15] According to Chaédria LaBouvier, the guest curator of the Basquiat show, the panel excluded her – a complaint she also raised from the audience during the panel. LaBouvier had previously complained that the museum had made decisions for her exhibition without her consultation. According to her she was also excluded from the deinstallation process, which is standard for curators to oversee.[16] On 2020 an independent investigation by an outside law firm sought by the museum, found no evidence of discrimination against LaBouvier.[13]

Select bibliography

  • Spector, Nancy, and Félix González-Torres. Felix Gonzalez-Torres. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1995.
  • Barney, Matthew, Nancy Spector, and Neville Wakefield. Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2002.
  • Spector, Nancy, and Richard Prince. Richard Prince. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2007.
  • ʻAnattā, . Phalang Thang 6 [hok]. Krungthēp: Khletthai, 1983.
  • Hanhardt, John G, Nancy Spector, Lisa Dennison, and Joan Young. Moving Pictures: Contemporary Photography and Video from the Guggenheim Museum Collections. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2003.
  • Spector, Nancy, Maurizio Cattelan, Francesco Bonami, and Barbara Vanderlinden. Maurizio Cattelan. London: Phaidon, 2000.
  • Spector, Nancy, Maurizio Cattelan, and Nancy Spector. Maurizio Cattelan: All. New York, NY: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2011.
  • Spector, Nancy. Theanyspacewhatever. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2008.
  • Dennison, Lisa, and Nancy Spector. Singular Forms (sometimes Repeated): Art from 1951 to the Present. [exhibition] Guggenheim Museum. New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004.
  • González-Torres, Félix, and Nancy Spector. Felix Gonzalez-Torres: America. United States Pavilion, 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007. New York, NY: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2007.

References

  1. ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/arts/design/nancy-spector-joins-brooklyn-museum-as-chief-curator.html?_r=0
  2. ^ Randy Kennedy (2017-02-15). "Nancy Spector Returns to Guggenheim as Chief Curator and Artistic Director". The New York Times. Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  3. ^ "Nancy Spector Biography". Yale University. Retrieved July 17, 2014.; and "Frieze Foundation Biography". Frieze Foundation. Retrieved April 10, 2012.
  4. ^ "Nancy Spector. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum". guggenheim.org. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  5. ^ "Nancy Spector Biography". Yale University. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
  6. ^ a b "Nancy Spector". Independent Curators International. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
  7. ^ Kennedy, Randy (7 June 2007). "Tough Art With a Candy Center". The New York Times.
  8. ^ "Nancy Spector Biography". Yale University. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
  9. ^ Schwartzman, Paul (2018-01-25). "The White House asked to borrow a van Gogh. The Guggenheim offered a gold toilet instead". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-01-25.
  10. ^ "Nancy Spector". International Art Critics Association. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
  11. ^ "25 Art World Women at the Top, From Sheikha Al-Mayassa to Yoko Ono". Artnet. 17 April 2014.
  12. ^ "40 Women To Watch Over 40". Forbes Inc. 16 July 2014.
  13. ^ a b Holmes, Helen (8 October 2020). "Guggenheim Curator Nancy Spector to Step Down Though Cleared of Wrongdoing". Observer.
  14. ^ Pogrebin, Robin (8 October 2020). "Guggenheim's Top Curator Is Out as Inquiry Into Basquiat Show Ends". The New York Times.
  15. ^ "Fall Public Programs at the Guggenheim Museum". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved 2020-12-13.
  16. ^ Siegler, Mara; Feuerherd, Ben (2019-11-07). "Guggenheim Basquiat curator says museum fosters 'white supremacy,' 'violence'". New York Post. Retrieved 2020-06-03.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nancy_Spector&oldid=994030228"