New curator promotes rewards, challenges of contemporary art

"Contemporary art challenges us and makes us uncomfortable because it often deals with core social and cultural issues, " says Andrea Inselmann, the new curator of modern and contemporary art at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell.

"Artists of the past 20 years have focused on issues of identity -- of gender, race, sexuality and all the dimensions of personal and social selfhood. These things can stir us and disturb us, but by working with our responses we can appreciate what this art is about. That can be very exciting."

Inselmann, who joined the Johnson in January, is the first person to hold this curatorial title, a new position at the museum.

"Creating a new curatorial position is not something we have done for many years," said Frank Robinson, the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the museum. "This new position is an indication of our commitment to exploring contemporary art and the importance we think it holds for the university and the wider community."

Inselman shares Robinson's belief that a university museum has special opportunities to reach an audience for contemporary art.

"Young people at university, regardless of what they are studying, are at a time of their lives when they are trying to define who they are in the world," Inselmann said. "Visual art is one of the most powerful tools to further those explorations and give expression to those concerns.

"We hope to continue to offer challenging exhibitions, but also to present workshops, discussion groups and other opportunities for students to meet artists. We want to give people a chance to learn more about the creative process so it is not such a mystery anymore."

Inselmann's appointment coincides with the museum's fundraising to strengthen its holdings of contemporary art. In the fall of 2001, the museum surpassed its goal of creating a $450,000 fund for contemporary art purchases, a priority set by the Museum Advisory Council in 1999.

Inselmann had been at the Kohler Arts Center in Milwaukee since 1996. She was also a curator for a major photography collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin and a Helena Rubinstein Fellow at the Whitney Museum in New York. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and has an M.A. in cultural studies from the University of Texas.