Phillips Collection Names a Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art was originally published on City Desk on Jan. 27, 2009, at 4:11 pm
In our December arts issue, Jeffry Cudlin observed that while the Phillips Collection scored a win in ‘07 by hiring Dorothy Kosinski as director, it still hadn’t managed to find a senior curator for its Modern and Contemporary Art Collection. The empty position appeared all the more odd in light of the Phillips’ December report that it had increased its endowment by $23.5 million over the last year (bringing the total size of the Phillips Collection’s endowment to $38 million).
Finally, the waiting and speculating are over: As of Friday, the curator position has been filled by one Vesela Sretenovic. More info after the jump.
From the press release:
Dorothy Kosinski, Ph.D., director of The Phillips Collection, announced today the creation of a new curatorial position for modern and contemporary art. She has appointed Vesela Sretenovic, Ph.D., to the post.
In her new position, Sretenovic is responsible for enhancing the museum’s longstanding engagement with contemporary art, working with living artists, both nationally and internationally, to reinvigorate the Phillips’s legacy as a place for conversation, experimentation, and dialogue. As part of this process, she will also collaborate with the museum’s Center for the Study of Modern Art, developing interdisciplinary programs that engage artists, members of the public, scholars, students, and teachers….
Sretenovic brings to the Phillips significant experience as a museum professional and scholar. For the last ten years, she worked at the David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, where she organized numerous special exhibitions of contemporary art, including solo shows of the work of Charles Long, Joseph Beuys, and Sean Scully. During her tenure, Sretenovic also planned public events, lectures, and symposia, including a symposium on Joseph Beuys, and on theoretical and practical aspects of installation art. She previously worked for the University at Buffalo Art Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as several galleries in New York. She also taught art history and art theory at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Sretenovic has presented her scholarship in contemporary art in many public lectures and academic conferences, most recently at The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Conference in Williamstown, Mass. She received her doctorate in humanities and master’s degree in philosophy from Syracuse University. Her dissertation was entitled Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology of Vision in Relation to Contemporary Installation Art. She earned a master’s degree in modern art history, theory, and criticism from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a bachelor’s degree in the history of art from the University of Belgrade.
