Fowler Museum at UCLA, Fowler Museum
Chief Curator
Institution Type: | College / University |
Location: | California, United States |
Position: | Curator |
The Fowler Museum at UCLA seeks an experienced, energetic, creative and team-oriented Chief Curator who has management responsibilities over the curatorial functions of the Museum, including the development and implementation of its exhibition program and the management of its collections using innovative approaches. The Chief Curator is also a specialist in either the arts of Africa, the Americas, or Asia and the Pacific, and has direct responsibility over the museum’s programming and collections in their area of specialty. This position reports to the Director of the Museum and will participate in the Fowler’s leadership team and in its next phase of strategic planning and envisioning the future.
Background:
The Fowler Museum at UCLA explores global arts and cultures with an emphasis on works from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the indigenous Americas—past and present. The Fowler enhances understanding and appreciation of the diverse peoples, cultures, and religions of the world through dynamic exhibitions, publications, and public programs, informed by interdisciplinary approaches and the perspectives of the cultures represented. The Fowler is known for its dynamic and innovative traveling exhibition program and its scholarly publications. The Museum’s mission has expanded in recent years to include a strong focus on contemporary artistic production from the regions of the world the Fowler has long represented, and one of the goals is to show how artistic creativity is flourishing in the postcolonial, transnational contexts in which artists find themselves today.
The Fowler Museum was founded in 1963 to consolidate the multicultural collections on campus and to make them accessible to the University community and to the general public. In the course of its first fifty years, the Fowler Museum has presented more than 250 exhibitions, published 134 scholarly volumes, and has become one of the premier repositories of world arts. Its art and ethnographic collections now include more than 125,000 objects from six continents, and archaeological holdings exceed 600,000 items, offering a comprehensive resource for exhibitions, scholarship, and teaching central to the Museum’s mandate. The Fowler acknowledges the significance of a diverse range of art forms: sculpture; textiles; and painting; popular, commercial, and ephemeral arts; and music and performance.
The 100,000-sq.-ft. Museum houses its renowned collections and 20,000 sq.-ft. of exhibition space. Full-time, permanent staff at the Museum numbers 35. Currently, 30 volunteers contribute their time and expertise to a variety of departments, including archaeology, photography, conservation, registration, public events, Museum store, and membership. UCLA students are employed in many of the Museum’s departments, including curatorial, education, collections, programming, security, and administration.
Each year, the Fowler develops four to five large-scale and six to eight small-scale temporary exhibitions. Interdisciplinary, humanities-based research is integral to the Fowler’s mission and exhibitions showcase the most up-to-date scholarship on a geographical area, culture, and/or artistic phenomena as well as the work of emerging and mid-career international artists. The Fowler also has up to 5 traveling exhibitions on view at other museums at any one time.
Among its contemporaries nationwide, the Fowler is highly respected in the museum field and recognized for doing projects with ambitious and original content, innovative thematic approaches, research-based interdisciplinary scholarship, and inventive installation design. The Fowler is a leading academic publisher of single- and multi-authored scholarly volumes.
Summary of Responsibilities:
In conjunction with the Museum Director, the Chief Curator will have creative responsibility and authority for the overall curatorial direction of the Fowler Museum and for the stewardship of the Museum’s vast collections. The incumbent will contribute to the development of short-term and long-range, strategic, intellectual, artistic and engagement goals as the Museum enters a new phase of planning and envisioning the future.
The Chief Curator will work with the Director and other senior staff on the conceptualization, development and implementation of exhibitions; the determination of institutional curatorial priorities; and the selection of in-house, traveling and guest-curated exhibitions. The Chief Curator will also participate in establishing priorities for publications, digital initiatives, and public programs, and will work with faculty from across the UCLA campus to engage them and their students with the Museum’s exhibitions, collections, and programs.
The Chief Curator will lead the curatorial team, which consists of a Senior Curator of Asian and Pacific Collections, a Curator of Latin American and Caribbean Popular Arts, an additional Curator to be hired after this position is filled, additional curators as funding becomes available, a curatorial and research associate, and guest and consulting curators as needed.
The incumbent will serve as a spokesperson for the museum on issues related to exhibitions and collections; will provide leadership in the development and preparation of grant proposals for exhibitions; and will develop relationships with private collectors and other stakeholders, to build collections and financial patronage.
The Chief Curator will also curate exhibitions related to his or her area of training and write scholarly texts in relationship to exhibitions as well as collections research. The incumbent is also expected to be actively engaged in national and international dialogues relating to his or her field as well as to current museological issues and debates.
The Chief Curator will work closely with the departments of Education, Exhibitions, Publications, Collections, Communications and Development on matters related to museum operations and activities.
UCLA offers full health, welfare, and retirement benefits to its permanent staff members; certain eligibility requirements must be met to qualify for all plans.
Contact: |
All applicants are required to submit an application through the UCLA Career Opportunity site, accessible from the UCLA Gateway Employment page. Please select “Campus Job Openings” from http://www.ucla.edu/employment.html to submit an application. The Requisition number for this position is 22529. The application deadline is October 1, 2015. Qualified candidates will be asked to provide writing samples. Continued employment contingent upon completion of satisfactory background investigation. UCLA is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. |
Website: | http://www.fowler.ucla.edu |
Primary Category: | None |
Secondary Categories: | African American History / Studies African History / Studies Anthropology Chicana/o History / Studies Colonial and Post-Colonial History / Studies Cultural History / Studies East Asian History / Studies Ethnic History / Studies Fine Arts Humanities Latin American and Caribbean History / Studies Mexican History / Studies Native American History / Studies South Asian History / Studies World History / Studies Visual Studies Southeast Asian History / Studies |
Posting Date: | 08/28/2015 |
Closing Date | 10/01/2015 |