Episode 10: Claire Howard - Curating & The Open Road

This interview is with Claire Howard, the Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art here in Austin. The museum is currently hosting a traveling photography exhibit called The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip. Claire speaks about the content and images that make up the exhibit and shares what goes on behind the scenes to plan for and integrate an exhibition into a new space. She also had the chance to add elements to the original line up that enhance the conversation and relate to our location and it’s history for the benefit of a local audience.
Don’t miss this great exhibition which will be on view from November 25th, 2017 until January 7th, 2018. It was organized by the Aperture Foundation in New York and curated by David Campany and Denise Wolf, supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Photographs by Robert Frank, Inge Morath, Ed Ruscha, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, William Eggleston, Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore, Victor Burgin, Bernard Plossu, Shinya Fujiwara, Eli Reed, Joel Sternfeld, Todd Hido, Alec Soth, Ryan McGinley, Justine Kurland, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs.
Blanton Museum of Art
The University of Texas at Austin
200 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Austin, TX 78712
PHONE: 512-471-5482
EMAIL: [email protected]
Some of the subjects we discuss:
The Blanton
Claire’s previous work history
Austin gallery spaces
Prep for The Open Road
Origins of the exhibition
Hanging the show
Photographing america
Joel Sternfeld
Lee Friedlander
Alex Soth
Inge Morath
Justine Kurland
Photography today
Robert Frank
Claire’s additions
Eli Reed
Road trip inspiration
Walt Whitman quote


Claire's Bio
Claire Howard is the Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art. She was the 2016-2017 Vivian L. Smith Foundation Fellow at the Menil Collection in Houston, and from 2010 to 2013, she was a Graduate Research Assistant at the Blanton, where she worked on exhibitions including Through the Eyes of Texas: Masterworks from Alumni Collections, and curated the collection exhibition Cubism Beyond Borders (both 2013). Claire previously worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where, as a Research Assistant for Modern and Contemporary Art, she helped organize special exhibitions including Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés and Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective (both 2009). Claire has also worked and interned at the Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia), Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (New York), and Wellesley College’s Davis Museum and Cultural Center (Wellesley, MA). She is a PhD Candidate in Art History at The University of Texas at Austin, and is writing her dissertation on the Surrealist movement and its cultural context from 1950-1969. Claire earned an MA in Art History from The University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Art History and English from Wellesley College. She is a native of Philadelphia.

This interview is with Claire Howard, the Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art here in Austin. The museum is currently hosting a traveling photography exhibit called The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip. Claire speaks about the content and images that make up the exhibit and shares what goes on behind the scenes to plan for and integrate an exhibition into a new space. She also had the chance to add elements to the original line up that enhance the conversation and relate to our location and it’s history for the benefit of a local audience.

Don’t miss this great exhibition which will be on view from November 25th, 2017 until January 7th, 2018. It was organized by the Aperture Foundation in New York and curated by David Campany and Denise Wolf, supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photographs by Robert Frank, Inge Morath, Ed Ruscha, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, William Eggleston, Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore, Victor Burgin, Bernard Plossu, Shinya Fujiwara, Eli Reed, Joel Sternfeld, Todd Hido, Alec Soth, Ryan McGinley, Justine Kurland, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs.

Blanton Museum of Art

The University of Texas at Austin

200 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Austin, TX 78712

PHONE: 512-471-5482

EMAIL: [email protected]

Some of the subjects we discuss:

The Blanton

Claire’s previous work history

Austin gallery spaces

Prep for The Open Road

Origins of the exhibition

Hanging the show

Photographing america

Joel Sternfeld

Lee Friedlander

Alex Soth

Inge Morath

Justine Kurland

Photography today

Robert Frank

Claire’s additions

Eli Reed

Road trip inspiration

Walt Whitman quote

Claire's Bio

Claire Howard is the Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art. She was the 2016-2017 Vivian L. Smith Foundation Fellow at the Menil Collection in Houston, and from 2010 to 2013, she was a Graduate Research Assistant at the Blanton, where she worked on exhibitions including Through the Eyes of Texas: Masterworks from Alumni Collections, and curated the collection exhibition Cubism Beyond Borders (both 2013). Claire previously worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where, as a Research Assistant for Modern and Contemporary Art, she helped organize special exhibitions including Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés and Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective (both 2009). Claire has also worked and interned at the Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia), Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (New York), and Wellesley College’s Davis Museum and Cultural Center (Wellesley, MA). She is a PhD Candidate in Art History at The University of Texas at Austin, and is writing her dissertation on the Surrealist movement and its cultural context from 1950-1969. Claire earned an MA in Art History from The University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Art History and English from Wellesley College. She is a native of Philadelphia.

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