In Conversation with Allison Glenn

This week on The Curatorial Blonde we have Allison Glenn. Allison Glenn is a New York-based curator and writer focusing on the intersection of art and public space, through public art and special projects, biennials, and major new commissions by a wide range of contemporary artists. She is a Visiting Curator in the Department of Film Studies at the University of Tulsa, organizing the Sovereign Futures convening, and Artistic Director of The Shepherd, a three-and-a-half-acre arts campus part of the newly christened Little Village cultural district in Detroit. 

Previous roles include Co-Curator of Counterpublic Triennial 2023; Senior Curator at New York's Public Art Fund, where she proposed and developed Fred Eversley: Parabolic Light (2023) and Edra Soto Graft (2024) for Doris C. Freedman Plaza; Guest Curator at the Speed Art Museum, and Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. In this role, Glenn shaped how outdoor sculpture activates and engages Crystal Bridges 120-acre campus through a series of new commissions, touring group exhibitions, and long-term loans. She also realized site-specific architectural interventions, such as Joanna Keane Lopez, A dance of us (un baile de nosotros), (2020), as part of State of the Art 2020 at The Momentary. She acted as the Curatorial Associate + Publications Manager for Prospect New Orleans’ international art triennial Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp. A Curatorial Fellowship with the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, culminated with In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street (2016), a citywide billboard and performance exhibition. As Program Manager at University of Chicago's Arts Incubator, she worked with a team led by Theaster Gates to develop the emergent space, where she curated exhibitions and commissioned performances such as Amun: The Unseen Legends (2014), a new performance from Terry Adkin's Lone Wolf Recital Corps, that included Kamau Patton.

Glenn has been a visiting critic, lecturer, and guest speaker at a number of universities, including The University of Tulsa, University of Pennsylvania, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Louisiana State University, and Pacific Northwest College of Art. Her writing has been featured in catalogues published by

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Neubauer Collegium, Counterpublic Triennial, Prospect New Orleans Triennial, Princeton Architectural Press, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Kemper Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, and she has contributed to Artforum, ART PAPERS, Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, ART21 Magazine, Pelican Bomb, Ruckus Journal, and Newcity, amongst others.

She has curated notable public commissions, group exhibitions, and site specific artist projects by many artists, including Mendi + Keith Obadike, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Maya Stovall, Rashid Johnson, Basel Abbas + Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Lonnie Holley, Ronny Quevedo, Edra Soto, Terry Adkins, Kamau Patton,Shinique Smith, Torkwase Dyson, George Sanchez-Calderon, Hank Willis Thomas, Odili Donald Odita, Martine Syms, Derrick Adams, Lisa Alvarado, Sarah Braman, Spencer Finch, Jessica Stockholder, Joanna Keane-Lopez, Genevieve Gaignard and others. Her 2021 exhibition Promise, Witness, Remembrance was name one of the Best Art Exhibitions of 2021 by The New York Times. Glenn is a member of Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Public Art Consortium Collaboration Committee and sits on the Board of Directors for ARCAthens, a curatorial and artist residency program based in Athens, Greece, New Orleans, LA and The Bronx, New York. She received dual Master’s degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Modern Art History, Theory and Criticism and Arts Administration and Policy, and a Bachelor of Fine Art Photograph