Nancy Spector is an American museum curator who has held positions at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
and the
Brooklyn Museum.
Education
Spector graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy from
Sarah Lawrence College in 1981. She received an M.A. from
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...
in 1984 and a
Master of Philosophy
The Master of Philosophy (MPhil; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. In the United States, an MPhil typically includes a taught portion and a significant research portion, during which a thesis project is conducted under supervision. An MPhil ...
degree in Art History from
City University Graduate Center in 1997.
[; and ]
Career
Spector was appointed as a Guggenheim curator in 1989.
Spector was adjunct curator of the 1997
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
and a co-curator of the first
Berlin Biennale
The Berlin Biennale (full name: Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art) is a contemporary art exhibition, which has been held at various locations in Berlin, Germany, every two to three years since 1998. T ...
in 1998.
[ At the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, she has overseen commissions by Andreas Slominski (1999), Hiroshi Sugimoto (2000), Lawrence Weiner (2000), and Gabriel Orozco (2012), as well as organized the exhibitions Douglas Gordon’s The Vanity of Allegory (2005) and All in the Present Must be Transformed: Matthew Barney and Joseph Beuys (2006).][
Nancy Spector was one of the curators of Monument to Now, an exhibition of the ]Dakis Joannou
Dakis Joannou (Leonidas Ioannou; el, Δάκης Ιωάννου; born December 30, 1939) is a Greek Cypriot industrialist and art collector. He is considered to be one of the leading collectors of contemporary art in the world and is famous for ac ...
Collection, which premiered in Athens in 2004 as an official part of the Olympics program.[
In 2007 she was the U.S. Commissioner for the ]Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
, where she presented an exhibition of work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Felix may refer to:
* Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name
Places
* Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen
* Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...
.
In 2013 she was nominated as "Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator".[
In 2017, when the ]White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
requested the loan of a Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
painting, from the Guggenheim collection, ''Landscape With Snow
''Landscape with Snow'' is a painting by Vincent van Gogh in 1888, believed to be one of the first paintings that he made in Arles. It is one of at least ten 1882 to 1889 oil and watercolor van Gogh paintings of a snowy landscape. The painting ...
'', Spector suggested instead, '' America'' - a sculpture of a gold toilet by Maurizio Cattelan
Maurizio Cattelan (born 21 September 1960) is an Italian artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His satirical approach to art has resulted in him bei ...
.
Guggenheim controversy
In 2019, the Guggenheim hired Chaédria LaBouvier to present her exhibition "Basquiat's Defacement: The Untold Story." At the conclusion of the show, LaBouvier accused Spector and the larger institution of creating "the most racist professional experience of my life" and criticized her on social media.
In 2020, the Guggenheim hired an external firm to investigate her claims. It ultimately found "no evidence that Ms. LaBouvier was subject to adverse treatment on the basis of her race." However, while the investigation was under way, museum employees submitted a public letter to the board, calling for them to "replace those members of the executive cabinet who have repeatedly proven that they are not committed to decisive, anti-racist action and do not act in good faith with BIPOC leaders."
In October 2020, after the investigation's conclusion, Spector voluntarily parted ways with the museum.
Exhibitions
At the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
in New York, Spector organized exhibitions and retrospectives. They include:[
*]Rebecca Horn
Rebecca Horn (born 24 March 1944, in Michelstadt, Hesse) is a German visual artist, who is best known for her installation art, film directing, and her body modifications such a''Einhorn'' (Unicorn) a body-suit with a very large horn projecting ve ...
: The Inferno-Paradiso Switch (1992, with Germano Celant)
*Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Felix may refer to:
* Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name
Places
* Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen
* Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...
(1995),
*Robert Rauschenberg: Performance (1997),
*Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...
's The Cremaster Cycle
''The Cremaster Cycle'' is a series of five feature-length films, together with related sculptures, photographs, drawings, and artist's books, created by American visual artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney.
''The Cremaster Cycle'' was made over a ...
(2002-2003),
*Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and audi ...
: Seven Easy Pieces (2005),
*Richard Prince
Richard Prince (born 1949) is an American painter and photographer. In the mid-1970s, Prince made drawings and painterly collages that he has since disowned. His image, ''Untitled (Cowboy)'', a rephotographing of a photograph by Sam Abell and ...
(2007),
*Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...
(2008),
*Tino Sehgal
Tino is an Italian name or nickname, often a diminutive of the names Agostino, Costantino, Martino, Antonino, Valentino, Giustino, Sabatino, Faustino, and other names ending in -tino.
Tino may refer to:
People Given name
* Tino Ausenda (191 ...
(2010) and
*Maurizio Cattelan
Maurizio Cattelan (born 21 September 1960) is an Italian artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His satirical approach to art has resulted in him bei ...
: All (2011).
She also organized the group exhibitions
*''Postmedia'': Conceptual Photography from the Guggenheim Museum Collection (2000),
*''Moving Pictures'': Contemporary Photography and Video from the Guggenheim Museum Collections (2002),
*''Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated)'': Art from 1951 to the Present (2004), and
*''theanyspacewhatever'' (2008).[
Under the ]Deutsche Guggenheim
The Deutsche Guggenheim was an art museum in Berlin, Germany, open from 1997 to 2013.Kuhla, Karoline"Final Exhibition: The Guggenheim's Farewell to Berlin" ''Spiegel Online'', November 15, 2012 It was located in the ground floor of the Deutsche B ...
in Berlin, Spector initiated special commissions by Andreas Slominski in 1999, Hiroshi Sugimoto
is a Japanese photographer and architect. He leads the Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory.
Early life and education
Hiroshi Sugimoto was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. He reportedly took his earliest photographs ...
and Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an American conceptual artist. He was one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s. His work often took the form of typographic texts, a form of word a ...
in 2000 as well as Gabriel Orozco
Gabriel Orozco (born April 27, 1962) is a Mexican artist. He gained his reputation in the early 1990s with his exploration of drawing, photography, sculpture and installation. In 1998, Francesco Bonami called Orozco "one of the most influentia ...
in 2012.[
At the Deutsche Guggenheim Spector organized the exhibitions for][
*]Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon (born 20 September 1966) is a Scottish artist. He won the Turner Prize in 1996, the Premio 2000 at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and the Hugo Boss Prize in 1998. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Work
Much of Gordon's ...
’s The Vanity of Allegory (2005) and
*All in the Present Must be Transformed: Matthew Barney and Joseph Beuys
Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
(2006).
Recognitions
*In 1992 Spector received a Cartier Foundation Grant[
*In 1993 Spector received the ]Peter Norton
Peter Norton (born November 14, 1943) is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name and portrait. Norton sold his software business to Syman ...
Family Foundation Curators Award[
*Spector won a ]Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was f ...
Disruptive Innovation Award in 2011.
*In 2014, she was named one of the top 25 most important women in the art world by Artnet.
*In 2014 ''Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'' named Spector on the "40 Women To Watch Over 40" list.
*In 2019, Spector was awarded an honorary degree by Pratt Institute.
*Five of Spector's exhibitions at the Guggenheim have won International Art Critics Association Awards
Selected bibliography
Spector has written catalogue essays for exhibitions on Maurizio Cattelan
Maurizio Cattelan (born 21 September 1960) is an Italian artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His satirical approach to art has resulted in him bei ...
, Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans (born 14 June 1958) is a Belgian visual artist best known for his paintings which explore people's relationship with history and confront their ability to ignore it. World War II is a recurring theme in his work. He is a key figure ...
, Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon (born 20 September 1966) is a Scottish artist. He won the Turner Prize in 1996, the Premio 2000 at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and the Hugo Boss Prize in 1998. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Work
Much of Gordon's ...
, Tino Sehgal
Tino is an Italian name or nickname, often a diminutive of the names Agostino, Costantino, Martino, Antonino, Valentino, Giustino, Sabatino, Faustino, and other names ending in -tino.
Tino may refer to:
People Given name
* Tino Ausenda (191 ...
and Anna Gaskell
Anna Gaskell (born October 22, 1969) is an American art photographer and artist from Des Moines, Iowa.
She is best known for her photographic series that she calls "elliptical narratives" which are similar to the works produced by Cindy Sherman. ...
among others.[
* Spector, Nancy, ''Against the Grain: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim''. in Art of this Century: The Guggenheim Museum and Its Collection. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1993.
* Spector, Nancy, “Rauschenberg and Performance, 1963-67: A ‘Poetry of Infinite Possibilities,’” in Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1997.
* Spector, Nancy, “Roni Horn: Picturing Place in Roni Horn: Events of Relation. Paris: Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1999.
* Spector, Nancy, “a.k.a.,” Douglas Gordon. Cambridge, Mass. and Los Angeles: MIT Press and Museum of Contemporary Art, 2001.
* Barney, Matthew, Nancy Spector, and Neville Wakefield. ''Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle''. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2002.
* Dennison, Lisa, and Nancy Spector. ''Singular Forms (sometimes Repeated): Art from 1951 to the Present''. xhibitionGuggenheim Museum. New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004.
*Spector, Nancy. All in the future must be transformed: Matthew Barney and Joseph Beuys. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2006
* Spector, Nancy, and Richard Prince. ''Richard Prince''. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2007.
* Spector, Nancy. ''Theanyspacewhatever''. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2008.
* Spector, Nancy, “Seven Easy Pieces,” Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010.
* Spector, Nancy, Maurizio Cattelan, and Nancy Spector. ''Maurizio Cattelan: All''. New York, NY: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2011, revised and reprinted in 2016.
* Spector, Nancy, Gabriel Orozco: Asterisms. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2012.
* Spector, Nancy, ed. Peter Fischli and David Weiss: How to Work Better. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2015.
* Spector, Nancy,“Resentment Demands a Story: Passage dangereux” in Louise Bourgeois: Structures of Existence. Munich: Haus der Kunst, 2015
* Spector, Nancy, “Mona Hatoum” Mona Hatoum. London: Phaidon Press, 2016.
]
References
External links
Complete list of Spector's works
* Bollen, Christopher
"The Curator"
''The New York Times'', December 3, 2006
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spector, Nancy
American art curators
American women curators
Sarah Lawrence College alumni
Living people
1959 births
21st-century American women