Dallas Museum of Art Appoints Vivian Crockett as Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art
Dr. Agustín Arteaga, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), announced the appointment of Vivian Crockett as The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art. Crockett’s expertise in contemporary art includes a specialization in art of the African and Latinx diasporas and the Americas. Her appointment follows several new additions across the DMA’s curatorial departments in the past year—including Vivian Li as The Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art and the promotion of Anna Katherine Brodbeck to lead the department as Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art—building on the Museum’s breadth of curatorial expertise across cultures, periods, and geographies. Crockett will work closely with Brodbeck and Li to shape a dynamic exhibition and public program schedule that both reflects the Museum’s broad-reaching, internationally focused approach to contemporary art and highlights the strength of the collection. She will begin in her new role on March 9, 2020.
“We have been actively expanding the range of curatorial expertise and programming at the DMA to reflect both the incredible breadth of our encyclopedic collection and our diverse audiences locally, nationally, and internationally,” said Arteaga. “Vivian’s knowledge and scholarly contributions bring an exciting perspective to the research, presentation, and study of contemporary art, and build on the team’s existing expertise across the global spectrum of artistic practice.”
Currently a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Crockett previously served as the 2017–2018 Andrew W. Mellon Museum Research Consortium Fellow in the department of Media and Performance Art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where she provided research and curatorial support for Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done (2018) and co-organized the 2018 Museum Research Consortium. Crockett additionally co-curated Visual AIDS’ 2017 Day With(out) Art: Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings, a project that secured funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and screened at over 120 national and international venues. From 2008 to 2011, she was a lead researcher for the collection review process in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Painting and Sculpture department, working with curator Sarah Roberts. In this role, Crockett brought new visibility to overlooked artists whose work was re-exhibited as a result, and advised on the deaccession and accession of works to develop a collection that helped tell the story of the museum’s history, its evolving missions, and its communities.
A PhD candidate in art history at Columbia University, Crockett is currently completing a dissertation on the participatory and media-based work produced by Brazilian artists Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape in the late 1960s through the 1970s. She has published scholarly papers in publications by institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, and Leslie-Lohman Museum, among others. She received her undergraduate degree in art history from Stanford University.
“I am thrilled to join the DMA, an institution that has been at the forefront of shaping conversations on historic and contemporary art practices,” said Crockett. “The collection’s international scope in postwar and contemporary art will allow us to further the DMA’s commitment to representing the diverse histories and cultures of visitors through exhibitions and programs that are transnational, highlight understudied and underrepresented artists, and support contemporary artists.”
