The Studio Museum in Harlem has named the second cohort of its Arts Leadership Praxis, a professional development program for mid-career museum professionals of color.
The participants, who have about five to seven years of professional experience and work in curatorial, education, or public programming roles at art museums, are nominated by experts in their field and chosen through an application process.
The eight members of the cohort are Kendyll Gross, assistant curator, Newcomb Art Museum in New Orleans; Naiomy Guerrero, museum specialist in history at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.; Taylor Jasper, assistant curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; Dhyandra Lawson, associate curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; David Lisbon, curatorial assistant at the Whitney Museum; Devin Malone, director of public programs and community engagement at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Ade Omotosho, assistant curator at the Dallas Museum of Art; and Antoinette Roberts, assistant curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
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The Arts Leadership Praxis program is an outgrowth of the CCL/Studio Museum in Harlem Curators’ Forum, a collaboration the Studio Museum did with the Center for Curatorial Leadership between 2021 and 2023, as well as a necessary addition to the robust offerings of internships, fellowships, and artist residencies it already has. A missing element was support for those at the mid-career level. Studio Museum director and chief curator Thelma Golden said she sees this as “a crucial endeavor that would help to redress current inequities in the arts.”
“When ideating this program, I also thought of my trajectory, and the incredible ability I had, early on, to work in a deeply supported way,” Golden told ARTnews in an emailed interview. “Programs like the Curators’ Forum and the Arts Leadership Praxis are just some of the ways in which I can meaningfully create opportunities for so many talented arts professionals.”
As part of the six-month program, the cohort will participate in seminars, studio visits, a research trip, an intensive three-day workshop, and a mentorship program. Golden described the structure as “leaving the textbooks behind.” The inaugural cohort, which included only New York–based professionals, “has come away from the program with a deep understanding of the arts professional practices which will set them up for success in future leadership roles,” she said.
This year’s cohort will also expand its purview to include participants based across the country. Golden said the museum started with a New York focus, as it wanted to engage its local community first. “Of course, we also recognized the many significant contributions that are being made by mid-career arts professionals across the country and considered it essential that we were able to extend the same resources to those beyond our physical locale,” she said.
In thinking of the potential of the Arts Leadership Praxis program, Golden said she views it as just one more way the Studio Museum, which will open its new building later this year, can play an important role in shaping what the next generation of art world leaders looks like.
“I look forward to the real sense of community that this program enables, one that extends far beyond the relationships the participants build amongst each other,” she said. “After the course of this program, these individuals will have an ever-growing support structure which will continue to nurture as they advance in their careers.”
