Linkedin Smithsonian American Art Museum Curator Latin American Art

Our Department of Curatorial Affairs focuses on scholarship, preservation, and collections to tell the African American story in our 12 countdown exhibitions.

The squad preserves, documents, interprets, and makes accessible the collections and scholarship of the Museum in support of the Museum's mission and in accord with standards of quality and practise that maintain the Museum's leadership in the field. The office provides vision for the Museum's collections, enquiry, and exhibition development activities; coordinates and integrates public programs, and aids all of curatorial diplomacy in prioritizing projects and program activities.

Concourse Level

A Century in the Making: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Civilisation will open on the National Mall Sept. 24, but the effort to build the museum began more than 100 years ago. This showroom, "A Century in the Making," explores the journeying toward fulfillment of this long-held dream, providing an overview of the century-long struggle that began in 1915 and its culminating achievements. Opening the museum has involved the efforts of presidents and members of Congress, curators and architects, art collectors and army veterans, celebrities and ordinary citizens. Visitors volition learn the inspiration backside the museum's architectural building design and the significance of the museum's unique location on the National Mall, at the center of Washington'due south historic core.

Curators: Joanne Hyppolite and Michelle Wilkinson (pictured in a Washington Mail photo)

History Galleries (concourses 1, 2 and iii)

Slavery and Freedom

As the centerpiece of the museum, this exhibition explores the complex story of slavery and freedom, a story continuing at the cadre of our national feel. Start in the 15th century with the transatlantic slave merchandise, through the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, the exhibition uses personal stories to explore the economical and political legacies of slavery for all Americans. Priceless objects featured include Harriett Tubman'south shawl and hymn volume (c. 1876); Nat Turner's bible (1830s); shackles used for an enslaved kid; a slave cabin from Edisto Island, S.C.; a pocket copy of the Emancipation Annunciation read from past soldiers bringing news of freedom to the U.S. Colored Troops; and liberty papers (c. 1852) carried by a former slave, Joseph Trammell.

Curator: Mary Elliott, Washington Mail service photo

Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: Era of Segregation 1876–1968

This exhibition takes visitors from the end of Reconstruction through the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It is rich with history and artifacts that capture the major aspects of the ongoing struggle by the nation in full general and African Americans in particular to define and make real the pregnant of freedom. The exhibition will illustrate how African Americans not only survived the challenges set up before them but crafted an of import role for themselves in the nation, and how the nation was inverse as a result of these struggles. Some of the about powerful artifacts in the museum are located here: Emmett Till'south catafalque; a dress made by Rosa Parks; a prison tower from the Louisiana Land Penitentiary in Angola; a segregated Southern Railway rail car from the Jim Crow era; the Greensboro, North.C., Woolworth's lunch-counter stools; and a house (c. 1874) built, endemic and lived in by freed slaves in Maryland.

Curator: Spencer Crew, Washington Post photo

A Changing America: 1968 and Beyond

This section illustrates the affect of African Americans on life in the United States—social, economic, political and cultural—from the death of Martin Luther King Jr. to the second election of President Barack Obama. Subjects include the Black Arts Movement, hip-hop, the Blackness Panthers, the ascent of the black heart course and, more recently, the #BlackLivesMatter move. This exhibition encompasses several sections focusing on Black Power era of the 1960s and '70s, Black Studies at universities, racial dynamics in cities and suburbs and the irresolute function of the blackness middle class. The twelvemonth 1968 is seen as a turning bespeak in the modernistic struggle for freedom and equality with artifacts such every bit painted plywood panels from Resurrection City, a "Huey Newton, Government minister of Defense" poster and handmade banners from the 2008 presidential election.

Curators: William Pretzer (pictured in a Washington Post photo) and Michelle Wilkinson

Community Galleries (third floor)

Ability of Place

This exhibition explores the thought of place and region as a crucial component of the African American experience through an interactive multimedia area called the Hometown Hub, where visitors will engage with stories well-nigh migration and other themes. Surrounding the hub volition exist ten example studies of places in the U.S. illustrating the distinct flavor and feel of each. These place studies will incorporate a mix of diverse stories—well known and unknown; mainstream and edgy; celebratory and challenging. These include: Chicago (black urban life and home of the Chicago Defender newspaper; Oak Bluffs (leisure in Martha's Vineyard, Mass.); Tulsa, Okla. (Black Wall Street, the story of the riot and rebirth); South Carolina'southward low land (a story of life in the rice fields); Greenville, Miss. (images of segregated Mississippi through the lens of a photo studio); and Bronx, North.Y. (a story about the birth of hip-hop).

Curator: Paul Gardullo, Washington Postal service photo

Making a Fashion Out of No Style

The stories in this gallery prove the ways in which African Americans created possibilities in a earth that denied them opportunities. These stories reverberate the perseverance, resourcefulness and resilience required by African Americans to survive and thrive in America. Each story presents concrete actions and choices that people made to competition the racial status quo in America, challenging visitors to reconsider the notion of freedom every bit granted to African Americans and to see liberty, along with its privileges and responsibilities, as earned past African Americans. The three primary sections are: an introductory space with five iconic artifacts complemented by multimedia components; the institutional pillars of African American life—instruction, religion, business, organizations and the press; and a tradition of activism. Amid the featured stories will exist a Rosenwald School in South Carolina, the First A.M.E. Church in Los Angeles and Mary McLeod Bethune and the National Council of Negro Women in Washington, D.C.

Curators: Michèle Gates Moresi (pictured in Washington Post Photo) and Kathleen Kendrick

Double Victory: The African American Military Feel

Our military gallery exhibition conveys a sense of appreciation and respect for the military service of African Americans from the American Revolution to the current war on terrorism. It establishes an understanding that the African American military experience shapes opportunities for the greater community and has profoundly shaped the nation. This exhibition volition assist visitors understand the African American armed forces experience in three areas: "Struggle for Freedom" focusing on the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Ceremonious State of war; "Segregated Military," about the Indian Wars, Spanish-American War and Earth Wars I and II; and "Stirrings of Change to a Colorblind Armed services," examining the Korean and Vietnam wars and today's war on terrorism.

Invitee Curator: Krewasky Salter, Washington Mail photograph

Civilization Galleries (fourth floor)

Musical Crossroads

This exhibition tells the story of African American music from the arrival of the first Africans to today'due south hip-hop. Through its content, the exhibition will be the space where history and civilisation intermingle and where music serves as the crossroads between musical traditions and stories of cultural and social development. The gallery is organized through stories of musical genres and themes rather than chronologically, covering classical, sacred, rock 'n' curl, hip-hop and more.

Curator: Dwandalyn Reece, Washington Post photo

Cultural Expressions

This exhibition is an introduction to the concept of African American and African diaspora culture. It examines style (identity, political expression and attitudes expressed in clothing, wearing apparel, hair and jewelry), food and foodways, artistry and creativity through craftsmanship, social dance and gesture, and linguistic communication.

Curator: Joanne Hyppolite, Washington Post photo

Visual Art and the American Experience

This fine art exhibition illustrates the critical office that African American artists played in shaping the history of American art. Information technology volition feature seven thematic sections and i changing exhibition gallery. Works will include paintings, sculpture, works on paper, art installations, mixed media, photography and digital media. The history and relevance of each work will be available to visitors through a multimedia platform.

Curators: Tuliza Fleming (pictured in a Washington Mail service photo) and Jacquelyn Serwer

Taking the Phase

This exhibition explores the history of African Americans in theater, motion picture and television in order to gloat their creative achievements, demonstrate their cultural touch on and illuminate their struggles for equal representation on the stage of American entertainment. Visitors will see how African Americans transformed the ways they are represented onstage by challenging racial discrimination and stereotypes and striving to produce more than positive, authentic and various images of African American identity and experience. Together these stories volition advise how African American performing artists also paved the manner for broader social change. Stories include Paul Robeson'southward role in Othello, Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Take Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enufand the Black Stuntmen's Association in Hollywood.

Curator: Kathleen Kendrick, Washington Post photo

Sports: Leveling the Playing Field

This exhibition explores the contributions of athletes, both on and off the field. Some athletes take been symbolic figures of black ability, while others have taken their activism beyond the courtroom to the courtroom, boardroom, and the newsroom. Considering sports were among the first, and almost loftier profile spaces to take African Americans on relative terms of equality, sport has had a unique part inside American culture. Within black communities, sports have always been political. From the refusal to let African Americans an opportunity to compete to the formation of African American segregated sporting teams and leagues; from the difficult won battles to compete at the highest levels of the game to the introduction of African American expressive cultural practices within the games, the African American presence in sports has had social and political consequences.

Curator: Damion Thomas, Washington Mail service photo

Special Exhibitions

City of Hope: Resurrection City and the 1968 Poor People'southward Campaign

This exhibition commemorates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther Male monarch Jr.'south concluding human rights crusade in a new exhibition on the "Poor People'due south Campaign," a multicultural coalition that began in 1968 to end poverty. The exhibition, "City of Promise: Resurrection Metropolis & the 1968 Poor People's Campaign," features rare archival film and new oral histories with people who helped organize the campaign including Marian Wright Edelman and Andrew Immature.

Curator: Aaron Bryant, Washington Postal service photo

Now Showing

Currently on display on the second flooring in the Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts (CAAMA) gallery. At present Showing: Posters from African American Movies , a new temporary exhibition exploring the art of movie posters, specifically examining films by black filmmakers or works featuring black performers. The exhibition recognizes that skillful design matters and that film posters straddle an interesting role within the moving picture manufacture; they serve as both art and advertising. Through the pattern, moving-picture show posters can help frame ideas, create moods, and stoke interest in the picture show and its primary characters. This exhibition recognizes the fine line of art and commerce; it celebrates the Museum's sizable poster collection, and offers an abbreviated visual history of African Americans in picture palace.

Curator: Rhea L. Combs, Washington Mail service photo

A Look at the Blackness Manner Museum Collection and Designer Peter Davy

The museum's newly curated online exhibition gives fashion and black history enthusiasts an introduction to highlights from the Black Fashion Museum, which was founded by Lois K. Alexander-Lane. The entire collection contains nearly ii,000 objects that are currently existence cataloged for future display and access by manner scholars and researchers. In addition, the online exhibition is an opportunity for visitors to learn more nigh Alexander-Lane and enjoy more than 50 stunning gowns created by Afro-Caribbean designer Peter Davy.

Curator: Elaine Nichols, Washington Mail photograph

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Source: https://nmaahc.si.edu/about/meet-our-curators