Dallas, TX—March 20, 2019—Dr. Agustín Arteaga, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), today announced that Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck has been named the Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, overseeing the Museum’s exemplary contemporary art collection, programming, exhibitions, and scholarship. Brodbeck steps into her new position after serving for two years in the DMA’s Department of Contemporary Art as The Nancy and Tim Hanley Associate Curator, and previously as Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art.
“Katherine’s leadership and contributions to the DMA have been exceptional, and it has been a true pleasure to collaborate with her in shaping the direction of contemporary art at the Museum,” said Arteaga. “As we continue to expand the vision for the DMA’s collection and programming across the institution—aiming to bring underrecognized narratives of art history to the forefront—Katherine’s insights, expertise, and outstanding leadership capabilities have already played a vital role, as has her experience organizing exhibitions and working with collections at major institutions across the United States. I look forward to continuing our work together to develop engaging exhibitions and programs, and to provide meaningful experiences with contemporary art for our audiences, drawing from the strength and breadth of the DMA’s incredible collection.”
As the Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Brodbeck assumes official leadership of the department—continuing her work in overseeing the exhibitions, programming, publications, and acquisitions related to the Museum’s leading collection of contemporary art. Working in collaboration with Arteaga and other colleagues throughout the Museum, Brodbeck is also continuing to expand the scope of the department to reflect the DMA’s commitment to presenting an inclusive vision of the art historical canon. Among her key undertakings is to further develop the range of expertise within the department to reflect the Museum’s globally-minded approach to exhibitions, programming, collecting, and scholarship.
Since joining the DMA in 2017, Brodbeck has curated several exhibitions across the breadth of contemporary art, including the forthcoming exhibition Jonas Wood, the first major museum survey of works by the beloved American painter, opening at the DMA on March 24, 2019. She is currently at work on America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape, a focused exhibition of works primarily from the DMA’s collection of contemporary art, including 15 new acquisitions she oversaw for the DMA that take the American landscape as a point of departure. America Will Be! opens at the DMA on April 6, 2019.
Brodbeck also served as installation curator for the Dallas presentations of Gunther Förg: A Fragile Beauty (2018), the most comprehensive survey of Förg’s work to date, and Laura Owens (2018), the critically acclaimed mid-career survey of the American artist. She also curated the immensely popular presentation of Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2017) and co-curated Truth: 24 frames per second, the DMA’s first exhibition dedicated to time-based media. Additionally, she has organized the DMA’s exhibition series Concentrations, which spotlights emerging international artists and most recently featured the work of conceptual artist Runo Lagomarsino.
Brodbeck has made significant contributions to the DMA’s contemporary art holdings through the acquisition of dozens of works, including key pieces by Ed Clark, Gerhard Richter, Adriana Varejão, Horacio Zabala, Theaster Gates, Tony Lewis, Sanford Biggers, Shara Hughes, Robert Colescott, Tomás Saraceno, Thornton Dial, Wanda Koop, and Gabriel Orozco.
“I am honored to assume the role of the Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at my cherished home institution. Over the past two years, I have had the opportunity to become immersed in our community and in our collection. We are privileged to enjoy tremendous support in building upon our already first-rate contemporary collection, addressing blind spots in art history while remaining at the cutting edge of recent developments in the field. Our position in an encyclopedic museum has allowed us to reach across geography, time, and media to better serve our audiences by questioning outdated hierarchies and providing holistic historic contexts. Through upcoming acquisitions, exhibitions, and programming, I look forward to furthering our commitment to demonstrating the transnational development of postwar art in relevant ways.”
Prior to joining the DMA, Brodbeck worked in curatorial departments at the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She co-curated the first comprehensive US retrospective of the influential Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica in Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium (2016), co-organized by the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She also provided extensive exhibition research for Picasso’s Drawings, 1890–1921: Reinventing Tradition (The Frick Collection, 2011) and Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years (The Museum of Modern Art, 2007).
Brodbeck has been supported by a number of fellowships, and she has delivered scholarly papers and contributed to numerous publications in her field. She has also served as an adjunct instructor of art history at New York University and Hunter College.
Brodbeck earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. She is a magna cum laude graduate of New York University and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
About the DMA Contemporary Art Collection
The Dallas Museum of Art has one of the leading collections of contemporary art in an American encyclopedic museum. The collection encompasses over 4,000 works from 1945 to the present, including major holdings of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism; conceptualism, time-based media, and installation works; photography; and the work of emerging artists. The Museum has particular strengths in German, Italian, East Asian, and Latin American art, as well as art of the African diaspora. Additions of work by today’s established and emerging artists continue the DMA’s distinguished history of collecting the art of the present, including recent acquisitions of works by Arthur Jafa, Yayoi Kusama, Sam Gilliam, Frank Bowling, James Coleman, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Gary Hume, Walter De Maria, and Haim Steinbach. Works by Texas artists, including David Bates, Annette Lawrence, and Ludwig Schwarz, have consistently been acquired.
In 2005 Dallas collectors Marguerite and Robert Hoffman, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, and Deedie and Rusty Rose announced that they had jointly pledged their private collections—which at the time included over 900 works of art and which continue to grow significantly—as an irrevocable bequest to the Museum. Along with the Hoffman, Rachofsky, and Rose bequests and additional family and individual bequests and gifts, numerous donors have generously established dedicated funds for contemporary art, including most significantly the TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, the Contemporary Art Initiative, the Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Fund, and the Deal, Denker, Elcock, Faulconer, Hanley, Lay, Mead, Stoffel, Wilcox, and Young families.
About the Dallas Museum of Art
Established in 1903, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is among the 10 largest art museums in the country and is distinguished by its commitment to research, innovation, and public engagement. At the heart of the Museum and its programs is its global collection, which encompasses more than 24,000 works and spans 5,000 years of history, representing a full range of world cultures. Located in the nation’s largest arts district, the Museum acts as a catalyst for community creativity, engaging people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse spectrum of programming, from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary events, and dramatic and dance presentations. Since the Museum’s return to free general admission in 2013, the DMA has welcomed more than four million visitors, including more than 800,000 in 2018. For more information, visit DMA.org.
The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA Members and donors, the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
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