Vivian Crockett will join New York’s New Museum as curator, beginning January 1, 2022. The Brazilian-American Crockett, who specializes in Latinx art and art of the African diaspora, comes to the museum from the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), where she has served as the Nancy and Tim Hanley assistant Curator of Contemporary Art since February 2020.

Since starting at the Dallas Museum of Art last year, Crockett has placed an emphasis on Latinx art and African diasporic art. Her projects there include a solo exhibition for photographer Guadalupe Rosales that is due to open in October.

Afro-Atlantic Histories. Source: Vivian Crockett website



Crockett, who holds a BA from Stanford University, is in the process of obtaining her PhD in art history from Columbia University, with a dissertation focusing on the participatory and media-based work of Brazilian artists Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape. Crockett also co-curated Visual AIDS’ 2017 Day With(out) Art: Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings, a project supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and screened at over 120 national and international venues. She serves on the Graduate Committee of Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies and on the Advisory Board of Recess. Prior to joining the Dallas Museum of Art, Crockett was a curatorial fellow in MoMA’s media and performance art department, where she worked on the institution’s 2018 Judson Dance Theater survey. She also served as a researcher for a collection review at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and as a teaching fellow at the Whitney Museum in New York.

Crockett’s appointment at the New Museum could show a willingness on the institution’s part to exhibit more Latinx art and African diasporic art. Within larger New York modern and contemporary art institutions, like the New Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, such a focus historically has been rare.

New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni states, “We are excited to welcome Vivian to the New Museum, as she brings a wealth of experience that will greatly enrich and energize our program. With her interests in African and Latinx diasporas, she strongly connects to the New Museum's ongoing focus on international art and global dialogues, and her work around questions of gender and queer theory participates in the Museum's long history of engagement with such themes. Just as importantly, she is passionate, engaged, and informed about the most recent developments in contemporary art. My colleagues Gary Carrion-Murayari and Margot Norton and I couldn't think of a better partner as we continue to develop our program.”