Long Island City, NY – SculptureCenter is pleased to announce the appointment of Jovanna Venegas to the position of Curator. As Curator, Venegas will contribute to SculptureCenter’s artistic program, developing a robust programmatic calendar inclusive of exhibitions, commissions, educational and public programs, publishing, and other initiatives. Venegas joins SculptureCenter from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she currently serves as Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, and will begin her post at SculptureCenter in January 2024. “I am delighted to join the team at SculptureCenter, an institution that has always been artist-driven and boldly demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the most radical practices and ideas of our time in profound and dynamic ways,” Venegas said.
During her six-year tenure at SFMOMA, she supported solo presentations of new work by artists including Charles Gaines (2020) and Rodney McMillian (2019), as well as new commissions in group exhibitions such as SOFT POWER (2019), which featured works by Dineo Seshee Bopape, Tanya Lukin Linklater, and Cinthia Marcelle, among others. She curated New Work: Fernando Palma Rodríguez (2023) and Bay Area Walls: Liz Hernández (2021), and co-organized Shifting the Silence (2022), which featured over 30 women artists from SFMOMA’s collection, including Tania Pérez Córdova, Nairy Baghramian, and Firelei Báez. Also at the museum, Venegas co-organized Sitting on Chrome: Mario Ayala, rafa esparza, and Guadalupe Rosales (currently on view); the 2022 SECA Art Award; and New Work: Wu Tsang Presents Moved by the Motion (2021).
Beyond SFMOMA, Venegas served as curatorial advisor for the Whitney Biennial 2022 on the U.S./Mexico border region and has contributed to projects and exhibitions at MUAC (Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo) and La Tallera, both in Mexico City. From 2015–2017, she contributed to public programs and curatorial projects with organizations including e-flux, the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Independent Curators International, and the 11th Gwangju Biennial. Venegas holds a BA in art history from the University of California at Los Angeles, and an MA in curatorial practice from the School of Visual Arts, New York.
Director Sohrab Mohebbi said, “We are thrilled to welcome Jovanna to SculptureCenter as we are experimenting with exhibition formats and institutional timelines, and to continue our organization’s historic commitment to curatorial polyphony.”
