CANCELLED-Modernist Forum: Curatorial Panel Discussion with Thomas J. Lax (MoMA), Ashley James (Brooklyn Museum/Yale)

In recent years, a younger generation of curators have joined the ranks of major museums nationwide. Informed by advanced studies in critical theory and with a keen sense of modernism’s global aspects, these younger curators—many of them from historically-underrepresented backgrounds—have pursued critical curatorial work that disrupts longstanding narratives of modern and contemporary art. We invite two of them—one an established and widely-lauded curator and one at the start of her career—to join a panel discussion addressing the work of art history between the academy and the museum. Thomas J. Lax (Associate Curator in the Department of Media and Performance Art at the Museum of Modern Art, NY) and Ashley James (Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum; Ph.D. Candidate, Departments of African American Studies; English Literature; and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University), will discuss what it means to curate modern and contemporary art today, how art history can unfold in practice and within museological contexts, and how the broader public may be engaged by this practice.