Helen Molesworth to Deliver UCLA Arts Commencement Address
The esteemed curator will address the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture graduates on Jun. 16
Esteemed curator Helen Molesworth will deliver the keynote address for the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture’s 2018 commencement ceremony, which will be held on June 16.
From 2014–2018 Helen Molesworth was the chief curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, where she co-organized the first U.S. retrospective of the Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino and the monographic survey “Kerry James Marshall: Mastry.” Prior to joining MOCA, she was the Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Boston. There, she assembled one-person exhibitions of artists Steve Locke, UCLA Department of Art Professor Catherine Opie, Josiah McElheny, and Amy Sillman, as well as the group exhibitions “Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957” (which travelled to the Hammer Museum at UCLA in 2016), “Dance/Draw,” and “This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s.”
Molesworth has also served as head of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museum, chief curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts, and curator of contemporary art at The Baltimore Museum of Art. She is the author of numerous catalogue essays and her writing has appeared in publications such as Artforum, Art Journal, Documents, and October. The recipient of the 2011 Bard Center for Curatorial Studies Award for Curatorial Excellence, she is currently at work on an exhibition inspired by the American painter and film critic Manny Farber and his 1962 essay “White Elephant vs. Termite Art.”
“It is in the times that are most challenging that we, as artists, must engage the world with our greatest passion, clarity, and forward-thinking vision. To be an artist in an uncertain future you must be brave, you must be bold, and you must strive for excellence,” said Brett Steele, dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. “Throughout her celebrated curatorial career, Helen Molesworth has exemplified these values time and again. Known for presenting cross-disciplinary work and underrepresented artists, often in their first museum shows or retrospectives, who better to inspire our community of architects, artists, educators, activists and scholars as they embark on the next chapter of their creative lives?”
“Helen is one of the most brilliant curators working in the world today,” said Catherine Opie, professor in the UCLA Department of Art. “She has an extraordinary ability to see forward — to identify and assess future generations of thinkers in contemporary culture. Her groundbreaking exhibitions have brought the work of really important artists, such as Kerry James Marshall, to a broader public in Los Angeles and beyond. The boldly optimistic collaboration she helped forged with the Underground Museum while at MOCA was radical and visionary. I think hers will be a very powerful — and empowering — voice for our graduating students to hear this year.”
UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture 2018 Commencement
Saturday, Jun. 16 | 4 p.m.
Dickson Court North (Perloff Quad).
Parking available for $12 in Parking Structures 2 and 3
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