Lynn Zelevansky

Last updated
Lynn Zelevansky
Born
New York City
NationalityAmerican
Education Pratt Institute, New York University
Known for Curator, Museum Director

Lynn Zelevansky (born 1947) is an American art historian and curator. Formerly Henry Heinz II Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art, she is currently based in New York City. [1] [2] Zelevansky curated "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama" (1998) and "Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form" (2004) for Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 1995 to 2009. While working at MoMA (1987–1995), she curated “Sense and Sensibility: Women Artists and Minimalism in the Nineties” (1994), that institution's first all-female exhibition. [3] AICA awarded it "Best Emerging Art Exhibition New York."

Contents

Early life and education

Zelevansky was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Her father worked in the insurance and real estate business. She attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School through high school, graduating in 1965. She met her future husband Paul Zelevansky during her first week at Carnegie Institute of Technology. [4] They married in 1968, but she transferred to Pratt Institute, where she graduated with a BFA in Photography in 1971. [5] Following graduation, she worked as a photographer and free-lance critic, reviewing photography and art exhibitions for various publications. During this period, she also taught photography and criticism at Pratt, Cooper Union, and the New School. In 1984, with two children (born in 1974 and 1977) at home, [6] she began the graduate program at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, earning her MA in 1987, and later completing coursework towards her doctorate. [7] During her studies, Zelevansky co-curated exhibitions for Pratt Institute and Camerawork.

Curatorial career

In 1986, Zelevansky joined MoMA's Department of Painting and Sculpture as a curatorial assistant and remained there until 1995. [7] While at MoMA, she assisted William Rubins on "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism," [8] for which she edited the second volume of the catalog, and on the Ad Reinhardt exhibition [9] and assisted on exhibitions of the work of Vito Acconci, [10] and Robert Ryman. [11] In addition to curating “Sense and Sensibility," [12] she organized Projects exhibitions for: Houston Conwill, [13] Cildo Meireles, [14] [15] Guillermo Kuitca, [16] Suzanne Lafont, [17] and Gabriel Orozco. [18]

Zelevansky was awarded a 1995 Peter Norton Family Foundation Curator's Grant. [19] In 1997, Zelevansky was the keynote speaker at Teachers College "Women in Arts and Culture" [20]

In 1995 Zelevansky became Assistant Curator in the department of Modern and Contemporary Art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, eventually becoming the Terri and Michael Smooke Curator and Department Head, Contemporary Art [21] [22] While at LACMA, she and Laura Hoptman co-curated the first US museum survey of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. [23] She also organized a retrospective for Robert Therrien, [24] and Diego Rivera. [25] During this period, she originated several group exhibitions such as "Longing and Memory" (1997), [6] "Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form" (2004), and "Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea" (2009). [26] Michael Kimmelman called "Beyond Geometry" a "creative rethinking of the history of postwar vanguard art in the West" [27] and AICA awarded it "Best Thematic Exhibition Nationally." [28] On the occasion of "Beyond Geometry," the J. Paul Getty Museum hosted the symposium "Structures and Systems: An Intercontinental Art World." [29]

In 2009, Zelevansky became Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art.During her tenure at CMOA, she collaborated with Elisabeth Sussman on "Paul Thek: Diver" [30] and together with Sussman and James Rondeau on "Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium". [31] Zelevansky oversaw the 2013 presentation of the Carnegie International, which highlighted the intersections of contemporary international art and activism and demonstrated the ways the Carnegie International (since 1896) had influenced its collection. [32] After leaving the Carnegie, Zelevansky returned to her native New York City to work as an independent art historian, writer, and curator. She recently curated Leon Polk Smith: Prairie Moon for Lisson Gallery in New York and Art is Art and Everything Else is Everything Else at the Fundacion Juan March in Madrid.

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Modern Art</span> Art museum in Manhattan, New York City, U.S.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The institution was conceived in 1929 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan. Initially located in the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue, it opened just days after the Wall Street Crash. The museum, America's first devoted exclusively to modern art, was led by A. Conger Goodyear as president and Abby Rockefeller as treasurer, with Alfred H. Barr Jr. as its first director. Under Barr's leadership, the museum's collection rapidly expanded, beginning with an inaugural exhibition of works by European modernists. Despite financial challenges, including opposition from John D. Rockefeller Jr., the museum moved to several temporary locations in its early years, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. eventually donated the land for its permanent site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yayoi Kusama</span> Japanese artist and writer (born 1929)

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and she is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, art brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, the world's top-selling female artist, and the world's most successful living artist. Her work influenced that of her contemporaries, including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Szarkowski</span> American photographer, curator, historian, and critic (1925–2007)

Thaddeus John Szarkowski was an American photographer, curator, historian, and critic. From 1962 to 1991 Szarkowski was the director of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paola Antonelli</span> Italian architect, curator, author, and educator

Paola Antonelli is an Italian architect, curator, author, editor, and educator. Antonelli is the Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, where she also serves as the founding Director of Research and Development. She has been described as "one of the 25 most incisive design visionaries in the world" by TIME magazine.

Paul Thek was an American painter, sculptor and installation artist. Thek was active in both the United States and Europe, exhibiting several installations and sculptural works over the course of his life. Posthumously, he has been widely exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, and his work is held in numerous collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and Kolumba, the Art Museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Klaus Biesenbach</span> German art historian and museum director (born 1966)

Klaus Biesenbach is a German-American curator and museum director. He is the Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, with Berggruen Museum and Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection, as well as the berlin modern under construction.

Cornelia H. "Connie" Butler is an American museum curator, author, and art historian. Since 2023, Butler is the Director of MoMA PS1. From 2013 to 2023, she was the Chief Curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

Mariah Robertson is an American artist. She lives in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Maltzan</span> American architect

Michael Maltzan is the principal architect at Michael Maltzan Architecture (MMA), a Los Angeles–based architecture firm. He received a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University and both a Bachelor of Architecture degree and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. Maltzan was selected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Miss</span> American environmental artist (born 1944)

Mary Miss is an American artist and designer. Her work has crossed boundaries between architecture, landscape architecture, engineering and urban design. Her installations are collaborative in nature: she has worked with scientists, historians, designers, and public administrators. She is primarily interested in how to engage the public in decoding their surrounding environment.

Barbara London is a US curator and writer specializing in new media and sound art. She is best known for founding the video collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and for the leading acquisition of works by Nam June Paik, Laurie Anderson, Bruce Nauman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Bauer Mock</span> American architect

Elizabeth (Bauer) Mock was director of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and a university professor. She was a charter apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, and the first former Taliesin fellow to join the MoMA staff. She was an influential advocate for modern architecture in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth A. T. Smith</span> American art historian, museum curator (born 1958)

Elizabeth A. T. Smith is an American art historian, museum curator, writer, and presently the executive director of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. She has formerly held positions as a curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), the chief curator and deputy director of programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the executive director, curatorial affairs, at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She is the author of numerous books on art and architecture, including Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses; Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective, Helen Frankenthaler: Composing with Color, 1962–63, and many others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steffani Jemison</span> American artist

Steffani Jemison is an American artist, writer, and educator. Her videos and multimedia projects explore the relationship between Black embodiment, sound cultures, and vernacular practices to modernism and conceptual art. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and other U.S. and international venues. She is based in Brooklyn, New York and is represented by Greene Naftali, New York and Annet Gelink, Amsterdam.

Yasmil Raymond is a visual art curator and the rector of the Städelschule in Frankfurt.

Inés Katzenstein is an Argentine curator, art historian, and art critic who specializes in Latin American art.

Mia Locks is a contemporary art curator and museum leader.

Christopher Y. Lew is an American art curator and writer based in New York City. Lew is the former the Nancy and Fred Poses Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Barbara Strasen is an American artist who works with painting, photography, digital technologies and installations. She is known for her use of layers and layering techniques. She has exhibited widely in galleries and museums, nationally and internationally. In 2015 she had a major retrospective at the Long Beach Museum of Art.

Michelle Kuo is an American curator, writer, and art historian. Since 2018, Kuo has been a curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art. She was previously editor-in-chief of Artforum magazine starting in 2010.

References

  1. ↑ "Lynn Zelevansky, director of Carnegie Museum of Art, is stepping down". Post-gazette.com.
  2. ↑ ""Awareness Seems to Happen in Waves" – Art Agency, Partners". Archived from the original on 2018-03-25. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  3. ↑ Smith, Roberta (24 June 1994). "Review/Art; Space Is Spare for Women's Work at the Modern". The New York Times . Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  4. ↑ "Carnegie director Lynn Zelevansky works on her balancing act". Triblive.com. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  5. ↑ "Lynn Zelevansky Named The Henry J. Heinz II Director of Carnegie Museum of Art". Artdaily.com. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  6. 1 2 "Archives". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  7. 1 2 "The Museum of Modern Art : Lynn Zelevansky" (PDF). Moma.org. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  8. ↑ "The Museum of Modern Art : PUBLISHES PICASSO AND BRAQUE: A SYMPOSIUM" (PDF). Moma.org. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  9. ↑ "The Museum of Modern Art : PUBLISHES FIRST ISSUE OF STUDIES IN MODERN ART" (PDF). Moma.org. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  10. ↑ "The Museum of Modern Art : Vito Acconci, public places" (PDF). Moma.org. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  11. ↑ "The Museum of Modern Art : Robert Ryman" (PDF). Moma.org. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  12. ↑ Johanna Drucker. "Sense and Sensibility: Women Artists and Minimalism in the Nineties." Third Text. Summer. 1994. pp. 103–107.
  13. ↑ "MoMA Conwill exhibition brochure" (PDF). Moma.org. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  14. ↑ "MoMA Meireles exhibition brochure" (PDF). Moma.org. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  15. ↑ Lawrence Wechsler. "Cries from the Wilderness.' Art News. Summer 1990.
  16. ↑ MoMA Kuitca brochure, Moma.org
  17. ↑ MoMA Lafont brochure, Moma.org
  18. ↑ MoMA Orozco brochure, Moma.org
  19. ↑ Judith Michaelson. "Morning Report." Los Angeles Times. September 8, 1995.
  20. ↑ Sabrina Rojas Weiss. 'TC Symposium Celebrates Female Artistic Progress'. Columbia Spectator February 3, 1997. p. 8
  21. ↑ Thomas, M. "Lynn Zelevansky, director of Carnegie Museum of Art, is stepping down". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
  22. ↑ "Artforum.com". Artforum.com. 8 September 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  23. ↑ Kusama 1958–1968 catalog, Eastofborneo.org
  24. ↑ "Robert Therrien – Bio | The Broad". Thebroad.org. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  25. ↑ "An Artistic Revolution: Diego Rivera | PBS NewsHour". PBS . Archived from the original on 2018-01-22. Retrieved 2018-01-21.
  26. ↑ "Review: 'Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea' at LACMA". Latimesblogs.latimes.com. 28 June 2009. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  27. ↑ [ dead link ]
  28. ↑ [ dead link ]
  29. ↑ "Structures and Systems (Getty Press Release)". Archived from the original on 2017-02-10. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  30. ↑ Cotter, Holland (2010-10-21). "Paul Thek Retrospective at the Whitney Museum". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2018-02-03.
  31. ↑ "Cocaine Art, Eden and Sex at MoMA". Pastemagazine.com. 29 January 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2021.
  32. ↑ Smith, Roberta (10 October 2013). "Global Extravaganza, but on a Human Scale The Carnegie International Keeps Its Survey Small". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.