Chris Ofili: Afro Muses Black Romantic Freestyle Frequency Glenn Ligon: Stranger Martin Puryear: The Cane Project and Isaac Julien: Vagabondia have all come into being under her direction. Since 2005, after taking over for Lowery Stokes Sims, Thelma has been in her current position and has curated many critically-acclaimed shows for the Studio Museum. Golden also served as director of the Whitney Museum at Phillip Morris before returning to the Studio Museum in 2000 as deputy director for exhibitions and programs. I had the great advantage to make an exhibition so wholly influential to my thinking and the ideas that I was engaged with that it has let me, in the intervening twenty years, follow my mind and my heart around the art and artists that I love.” “By having been fortunate enough to do that so early on in my career, it has really freed me to be truly curatorially curious. Golden says that in many ways, it was her dream show. The show ruffled the feathers of black and white viewers - and critics - alike, but opened up new dialogues. Her first big exhibition as curator was the 1993 Whitney Biennial (always a provocative seasonal show), but she really made her mark in 1994 when she organized the controversial exhibition Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art. in Art History and African-American Studies from Smith College, Golden actually started her career at the Studio Museum in 1987, prior to joining the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1988. She began my lifelong love of learning about art. Buck was an art aficionado and felt strongly that we should not only visit museums, but also learn about the art, artists and artworks we were going to see before our visits. However, it was her elementary teacher, Lucille Buck, who really brought her into the study of art history. “The game included cards that represented the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, and those deeply engaged me in the idea of a museum.” “When I was about 10 years old, a family friend gave my brother and I the board game Masterpiece, which involved figuring out who had stolen a great work of art,” the Queens-born Golden told theGrio. As director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, Golden brings her unique passion, commitment, style and laser-focus to every project she touches.īeing so good at what one does almost always stems from true love, and Golden has always been smitten with art. If Thelma Golden didn’t exist, you would want to invent her.

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