Claire Kovacs
Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ Art Museum
Claire Kovacs is the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ Art Museum. Her road to a museums career was winding and took a few detours to chemical engineering and art history (she is happy to tell you the story in person). She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Case Western Reserve University – all in art history. She curated exhibitions at the Figge Art Museum, Coe College, and the Krasl Art Center, and the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art. Her strategies for programming and exhibitions emphasize the ways that academic museums explore contemporary issues, foster interdisciplinary inquiry, create space for a multiplicity of voices and perspectives, and function as a site of dynamic community engagement. She emphasizes intersectional equity, diversity, accessibility and inclusion in collections, exhibitions, and programming. Her research practice grapples with ways that art historical research can support ‘The Common Good’ (to borrow a phrase from the NEH), using curatorial practice and writing as a mechanism by which to amplify under-told stories. She participated in the 2018 Getty Leadership Institute’s NextGen program, as well as the NEH/Newberry Library Summer Institute on Art and Public Culture in Chicago. She co-hosted The Gallery Gap, a WVIK podcast that examines in/equity in museum exhibitions, programs, and collections.