Catherine Craft

Background

About Catherine Craft

I am Senior Curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas and a scholar of Dada, Abstract Expressionism, and Neo-Dada. As a scholar, I'm interested in exploring canonical art histories, how they became that way, and what they omit. As a curator, I work with both historical modern as well as contemporary art on object-based projects that consider artists' agency in the presentation of their own work, emphasizing archival research and, in the case of living artists, a collaborative approach.Among historical exhibitions at the Nasher, in 2018 I curated 'The Nature of Arp,' the first North American museum survey devoted to the work of Jean (Hans) Arp in three decades, which subsequently traveled to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice in 2019. Most recently, I worked on 'Rauschenberg Sculpture' and, in cooperation with the Dallas Museum of Art,'Roy Lichtenstein in the Studio.' Projects with contemporary artists include the 2015 traveling retrospective 'Melvin Edwards: Five Decades;''Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures'(2021);'Magali Reus: A Sentence in Soil' and 'Nairy Baghramian: Modèle vivant'(both 2022); and 'Samara Golden: if earth is the brain then where is the body'(2024). Upcoming projects include a long-term project on sculpture in the US at mid-century and an essay for the forthcoming Robert Rauschenberg catalogue raisonne on the early years of the artist's development. At the Nasher, I work on modern and contemporary art in our permanent collection, both researching the museum's original holdings and adding works when possible. In recent years, I've been able to help the Nasher acquire sculptures and works on paper by Jean (Hans) Arp, Dorothy Dehner, Melvin Edwards, Maren Hassinger, Raoul Hague, and George Segal, among others, and I've explored innovative ways to present them in permanent collection installations such as the museum-wide presentation Mixtape (2021).I hold a doctoral degree from the University of Texas at Austin and am the author of 'An Audience of Artists: Dada, Neo-Dada, and the Emergence of Abstract Expressionism'(University of Chicago, 2012),'Robert Rauschenberg'(Phaidon, 2013), and 'Jasper Johns'(Parkstone, 2009), as well as various articles and reviews. I enjoying speaking about art and with artists; see the Nasher Sculpture Center's YouTube channel for conversations with Nairy Baghramian, Carol Bove, Melvin Edwards, and others, as well as talks on Isamu Noguchi, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean (Hans) Arp.