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Replacing 14-year veteran curator Bruce Guenther as Portland Art Museum's new Modern and Contemporary Art curator, Sara Krajewski has big plans for community outreach at PAM when she starts work in August.
When Guenther retired in 2014, WW's visual arts expert Richard Speer wrote of the alternating crusty and charming curator: "Curatorially, he was formidable, and PAM would do well to replace him in 2015 with someone approaching his caliber of aesthetic savvy."
Fresh off a worldwide art tour funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Fellowship, Krajewski is a Williams College alum and former curator of Seattle's Henry Art Gallery whose most recent post was director of the INOVA (Institute of Visual Arts) galleries at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Portland's art scene is "poised for growth," said Krajewski. Her plan is to fertilize it with community programming through the museum's education department.
Krajewski isn't the only change at PAM. Holding the post he took over when Guenther retired, Chief Curator Brian Ferriso (he man behind this spring's Italian Style show) will helm a team of fresh faces like Samantha Springer as Conservator, plus the newly-promoted Donald Urquhart as Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Mary Weaver Chapin, who's switching from Curator of Graphic Arts to Curator of Prints and Drawings.
Most notably, Northwest Art curator Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson is leaving next July after over five years overseeing what's possibly PAM's most known and renowned collection. No word on her replacement yet; PAM will start putting out feelers across the country soon, before the 2015 Contemporary Northwest Art Awards mark the end of Laing-Malcolmson's tenure.
WWeek 2015