The Public Art Fund, a New York-based art organization that operates several public art installations across the city, has appointed Alison Glenn, one of the country’s leading curators, as the senior curator. Glenn will begin her new role on May 16, replacing Daniel S. Palmer, who was appointed chief curator of the SCAD Museum of Art earlier this year.
“There is something about the opportunity to connect artists and ideas directly to audiences and audiences,” Glenn said in an interview about her appointment. There is an immediate necessity that public art brings to discourse. Often times with museums and institutions, there are a lot of barriers to entry. The idea of working in public breaks down some barriers to entry. For me, it leads the conversation to a fairer discourse.”
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Glenn is best known for her critically acclaimed 2021 exhibition “Promise, Witness, Remembrance” for the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, which collected works by 23 artists to honor the life of Breonna Taylor, who was from Louisville. In planning the exhibition, which met in just a few months, Glenn worked closely with the Taylor family and brought together local and national committees to advise on the exhibition.
“I’ve always been the type to like a lot of feedback on the work I do,” Glenn said. “This kind of collaborative engagement and close listening made the exhibition even stronger. There were so many voices in the room raising issues that not a single decision had been made in Silo. I hope and intend to work in the same way at Public Art Fund.”
Artist Rashid Johnson recalls that Glenn called him for advice when she was planning the show; Both ended by discussing the “activists’ fears, frustrations and disappointments” in the country and the world at the time.
“There was somewhat an expectation of a more educational approach to satisfy the audience at times like these, reduce stress almost somewhat or do something that is readable, accessible and easy to understand,” he said.
“Throughout our conversation, Alison was able to make it clear to me that these weren’t exactly her goals, and they shouldn’t be. When you’re dealing with complex issues from a Regulatory Secretary position, especially in real time, you have to be willing to take some chances, some of those opportunities It wouldn’t necessarily provide us with a great deal of relief, you know . . . “
Helping artists realize “dream projects”
Glenn was Co-curator for the upcoming Counterpublic 2023 Show in St. Louis, and held previous curating appointments as Senior Curator and Director of Public Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Houston for a brief period last year and as Co-curator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, from 2018 to 2021 .
At Crystal Bridges, she has focused on shaping her outdoor sculpting program across the museum’s 120-acre campus, sponsoring “Color Field” and co-curating “State of the Art 2020,” as well as working with artists, such as Johnson, Odili Donald Odita, And Hank Willis Thomas on the commissions.
In developing his commission to Crystal Bridges, a live greenhouse titled Bruises: For Jules, The Bird, Jack and Lenny (2021), Johnson said he found Glenn throughout the process to be “a great medium,” adding, “She’s someone an artist can feel comfortable being honest with. Sometimes the moderator’s job is a challenge for us, sometimes the job is to listen to us.” I think she does a good job of listening to the artists and putting us in a position to fulfill any of our ideas and interests.”
Johnson’s termination was delayed by the pandemic, which in turn altered the project.
“In the middle of working through it, my thoughts and feeling of what was developed and continued to grow,” he said. For him, a Curator like Glenn is someone who is “smart enough and capable enough to take a journey with an artist, and that journey isn’t necessarily always in a straight line.”
In all of her curating work, Glenn has said that her goal is to help artists realize “dream projects” in the city and to “connect them closely, with intent, to different communities.”
“In working with artists, I think my best experiences in collaborating come from really open and honest dialogue, and that takes time,” Glenn said. “It’s important for me to get to know an artist and they get to know me because these projects are so huge and there are so many risks.”
Nicholas Bohm, Artistic and Executive Director of the General Fund for the Arts, noted her curatorial work both at Crystal Bridges and with Counterpublic, showing her influence across “a number of different critical areas.
“Her work sets her apart in the field as one of the curating voices of her generation,” Baum said.
For Bohm, Glenn’s work on “Promise, Testimony, and Remembrance” came from “a place of profound interaction with the contemporary moment and tremendous scholarship and research and relationships with artists.”
“All these things brought together in one organizing exercise are an extraordinary synergy for the Public Art Fund,” he said.
Glenn agreed, referring to a recent conversation she had with Baum, in which he said that when viewers enter museums or galleries, they agree to see art, but that this is not necessarily the case when they encounter public art.
“It took me in a completely different direction,” she said. “When working in public, there will be all these other questions that I will need to constantly think about consent, in terms of how often people are going to interact with the works they see, whether they want to or not. It’s a completely different space to understand.”
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