guggenheim museum hires its first black curator

At the beginning of this week, you may have caught our piece about the Guggenheim Museum’s treatment of Chaedria LaBouvier, the first Black woman curator in the museum’s long history. LaBouvier is behind the blockbuster “Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story” exhibition, and has taken the museum to task for what she describes as white supremacy through her exclusion from exhibition panels and the creation of supplemental exhibition content. Claims the museum denies.

Now, just a week later, the Guggenheim has announced its hire of a permanent curator, Ashely James. The museum’s first full-time Black curator. Most recently James worked at the Brooklyn Museum as an assistant curator of contemporary art where she led the organization of the critically acclaimed exhibition “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power.”

“Ashley is a curator who has demonstrated incisive and intersectional thinking about contemporary artistic practice,” Nancy Spector, the Guggenheim’s artistic director, and chief curator, said in a statement. “Her work complements the Guggenheim’s mission to present the art of today, which we understand as a deep and expansive view of art history.”

As much as we’re rooting for Ashely, who is a total badass in her own right, it’s the timing of this hire is utterly suspicious. Let’s hope the museum acts right this time.