#23 Franklin Sirmans Head & Curator of Contemporary (2x08)

Host Kinte K. Fergerson
Guests: Franklin Sirmans
Web Address: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/artbeat
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Since January 2010, Franklin Sirmans is the Terri and Michael Smooke Department Head and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is the curator of recent exhibitions on Steve Wolfe and Vija Celmins which both traveled to LACMA. At LACMA, Sirmans has installed Color and Form, selections from the Broad Collection to coincide with the museum’s presentation of Blinky Palermo; an exhibition from the museum’s permanent collection titled Human Nature (cocurated with Christine Y. Kim) and a solo presentation of works by Robert Therrien from the collections of Broad and LACMA. He is at work on a solo project with Ai Weiwei, opening September 2011 and overseeing installations of new works by Bruce Nauman and Chris Burden in addition to the traveling survey exhibition Glenn Ligon: America, all for October 2011.

Prior to LACMA, Sirmans was Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Menil Collection in Houston, from 2006-2010, where he organized ten exhibitions in three years including Maurizio Cattelan accompanied by the catalogue Is There Life Before Death?; Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, 1964-1966; Steve Wolfe: On Paper; Face Off: A Selection of Old Masters and Others from The Menil Collection; John Chamberlain: American Tableau; NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith; Robert Ryman, 1976; The David Whitney Bequest; Otabenga Jones: Lessons from Below; and Everyday People: 20th Century Photography from The Menil Collection. He was also the coordinating curator for major traveling exhibitions on Bruce Nauman and Marlene Dumas.