Special to Independent Newsmedia
The first exhibition of its kind to feature works from the Phoenix Art Museum Collection selected by guest curators from the institution’s security, retail-sales, and event-rentals teams is on display now.
“Guarding the Art: A Frontline Perspective” is the first national iteration of “Guarding the Art,” an exhibition model developed by the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2022. Phoenix Art Museum’s presentation of “Guarding the Art” draws from the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 objects, and features works by renowned artists such as Keith Haring, Hector Ruiz, and Lew Davis, among others.
It is accompanied by original interpretative materials written by the 13 guest curators, in addition to an illustrated publication. “Guarding the Art: A Frontline Perspective” is on view now through Nov. 24 in the Rineberg and Ballinger galleries at Phoenix Art Museum, 1625 N. Central Ave.
“Building upon the incredible exhibition realized by Baltimore Museum of Art, ‘Guarding the Art’ is the first at Phoenix Art Museum to invite guest curators from our frontline staff and underscores the importance of creating opportunities to center diverse voices selecting the art featured in our galleries and exhibitions,” Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum, shared in a press release.
In February of last year, the Museum invited members of its security, guest-services, facilities, event-rentals, and retail-services teams to apply for the role of “Guarding the Art” guest curators through an internal application process. Over the past year the team of 13 frontline staff members worked closely with mentoring curator Susana Torruella Leval, Director Emerita and former chief curator of El Museo del Barrio in New York, and PhxArt organizing curator Christian Ramírez, the Cohn Assistant Curator of Contemporary and Community Art Initiatives.
They also collaborated with staff members across the Museum’s registration, marketing and communications, arts education and engagement, and exhibition-design teams.
The culminating exhibition features more than 20 works from across various collecting areas, including modern, contemporary, and American art. Featured works include “Little Boy Lives in a Copper Camp” (1939) by Lew Davis, “Untitled” (1979) by Richard Anuszkiewicz, and “Woman with Jar” (1975) by Paul Pletka, among others.
“Though the exhibition is quite diverse in overall content, the underlying current is one of unity, inclusion, diversity, and acceptance,” “Guarding the Art” guest curators shared in a joint statement.
Each artwork is accompanied by an extended label written by a guest curator. Guest curators were also responsible for producing an accompanying bilingual exhibition catalogue that includes all of the exhibition’s artworks and related text.
