curatormuseum science

American curator (b. Aug. 11, 1927, Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. Jan. 22, 2006, Pound Ridge, N.Y.), served as director (1973–88) of the painting and sculpture department at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, where he was instrumental in expanding its collection and in shaping its identity and direction. Rubin’s most notable accomplishments included acquiring MoMA’s vast collection of Abstract Expressionist art and organizing numerous important exhibits, which featured works by Pablo Picasso and Paul Cézanne. Rubin was a skilled acquisitor and was successful in securing valuable donations, including a Picasso metal sculpture (Guitar) from the artist himself. In 1984 Rubin mounted the exhibition “Primitivism in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern,” which sparked months of controversy among critics about Rubin’s having juxtaposed African and Oceanic artworks with Western masterpieces.

Nigerian-born Okwui Enwezor followed a short and nontraditional path to the peaks of the art world; the part-time poet and art critic began curating important art shows in 2002 without ever having studied art history formally. In February he mounted his first major show, “The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994,” at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, New York City. Just a few months later, in June, Enwezor put into practice his theory of art as an expression of social change when he became the artistic director of Documenta 11, the international exhibition held in Kassel, Ger. Ambitious in size and scope, the three-month show, held about every five years, was often likened to “the Olympics of contemporary art.”

Enwezor, the first non-European to host the Documenta exhibition, took a decidedly unconventional and global approach; he prepared for the show with a series of seminars on international issues. He eschewed the trendiness of many art shows. He did not shy away from political issues, including globalization, and was understandably comfortable looking beyond American and European traditions into African arts. His emphasis on ideas over the veneration of objects “art for art’s sake” was evident in his development of the “The Short Century” exhibit, which appeared first as a book in Munich, Ger., a full year before becoming a gallery show in New York City.

Enwezor was born in 1963 in Calabar, a Nigerian town bordering Cameroon. He was raised in Enugu in eastern Nigeria, but he relocated to the United States in the early 1980s to attend Jersey City State College (now New Jersey City University) in Jersey City, where he earned a B.A. in political science. His foray into the art world began as an...

U.S. museum curator who excavated Indian remains in Ohio, including Adena Mound (1901), a large earthen burial ground near Chillicothe, built c. 50 bc. It became the type site for the study of the North American Adena culture and period. Curator and librarian of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society (1898–1928) and curator of the Ohio State University Museum (1899–1928), he wrote Archaeological Atlas of Ohio (1914) and Certain Mounds and Village Sites in Ohio, 3 vol. (1907–22).