{"id":65654,"date":"2022-10-17T14:31:47","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T20:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=65654"},"modified":"2025-10-24T14:32:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T21:32:59","slug":"alisa-mccusker-the-museum-curator-in-the-age-of-decolonization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/alisa-mccusker-the-museum-curator-in-the-age-of-decolonization\/","title":{"rendered":"Alisa McCusker: The Museum Curator in the Age of Decolonization"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Alisa McCusker, UMFA’s new Senior Curator, Curator of European & American Art, gives a tour of selected works from the permanent collection to the UMFA board members (courtesy Utah Museum of Fine Arts).<\/p><\/div>\n

Because exhibitions are scheduled months, if not years, in advance, it may be a while before we see the curatorial hand of the Utah Museum of Fine Art\u2019s new senior curator. But, with the goals she has set, Alisa McCusker has plenty to keep herself busy behind the scenes. \u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

A Minnesota native (she did her undergraduate work at Hamline University, a small liberal arts college in St. Paul), McCusker studied art history and museum studies at Case Western Reserve (M.A.) before earning a doctorate degree in art history at the University of Texas, Austin. Focusing on Northern Renaissance Art, she specialized in the portrait drawings of Hans Holbein the Elder. She comes to the UMFA after seven years as curator of American and European art at the University of Missouri\u2019s Museum of Art and Archaeology in Columbia.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

She was attracted to the UMFA position because of the nature of the collection \u2014 \u201c[it] is broad but it also has some depth to it with 20,000 objects \u2026 areas that are really rich and interesting,\u201d she notes \u2014 as well as the job description: \u201cIt was very clear that this was a place that was committed to issues of inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd also to doing something about the issue of decolonizing the museum.\u201d <\/b>In interviews for the position, McCusker says it became clear \u201c[the museum wasn\u2019t] just doing lip service to those ideas and issues.\u201d They were looking for actionable ideas.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Decolonization is showing up all over the cultural radar. The loudest ping in recent months has been the Benin Bronzes, works outrightly pillaged by the British during what was called the \u201cpunitive expedition\u201d in <\/b>1897. <\/b>One British museum recently returned the works in their collection, prompting a vigorous debate on the future of the works, including an article by David From in The Atlantic<\/a>. For his HBO series Last Week Tonight, John Oliver aired a segment on decolonization and questionable museum practices, focusing on the Bronzes.\u00a0<\/span><\/b> In the wake of the Benin debate, Egypt has called for the return of the Rosetta Stone, also in a British collection. Greece wants the Elgin Marbles back. These are not arcane issues relegated to art historians and curators, but intense flashpoints fueled by international politics and broader cultural debates. In the United States, the cultural heritage of Indigenous tribes is at the forefront of this debate.<\/h4>\n

But don\u2019t expect McCusker to be packing up items in a Fedex box anytime soon. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly complicated,\u201d she notes. \u201cWhere do you draw the line? How do you demonstrate [ownership] adequately? Who does the research? Do we set up national boards, state-run boards?\u201d To start, she\u2019ll be getting to know the collection, anticipating a great deal of detailed research, and reaching out to stakeholders. Decolonization is not simply about opening the floodgates, as some might fear. \u201cEven though we\u2019re thinking how important decolonizing is and we really want to address this and think about what that means, what we\u2019re doing is opening it up to conversation \u2026 We\u2019re not suddenly saying, ‘Repatriate everything.’\u201d<\/h4>\n

In the meantime, there\u2019s a museum to run. Most immediately, McCusker is working on the upcoming install of Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea<\/i>, an exhibit sponsored by Art Bridges and co-curated by the Smithsonian Museum of American Art with four museums in the West. It has already shown in Idaho, Washington and Oregon and will fill the UMFA\u2019s downstairs galleries in February.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s a big show with some really big objects,\u201d<\/b> McCusker says. She\u2019ll also need to arrange a new exhibit for the salt gallery, where Horacio Rodriguez has been exhibiting since the beginning of the year (McCusker recognizes that the salt series\u2019 focus on contemporary art is not her specialty and accepted her position at the UMFA with an understanding that another curator would be hired to fill the role previously played by Whitney Tassie). \u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

As senior curator, McCusker is responsible for broad visions and is thinking about ways some of the galleries might change. For one, she\u2019s considering opening up the salt gallery for additional uses: maybe works on paper (her speciality) or photographs (one of the collection\u2019s strengths). She\u2019s also reconsidering how to use the galleries devoted to the permanent collection. \u201cOne thing that I would like to do is to start integrating the collections more.\u201d Traditionally the works have been presented in an encyclopedic way, based on periodization. \u201cI would like to start working on exhibitions or even more permanent installations that are more thematic and show our shared humanity.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n
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Adriaen Isenbrandt (ca. 1481-1551), “The Madonna Nursing the Infant Christ,” ca. 1530-1535, oil on panel (courtesy Utah Museum of Fine Arts)<\/p><\/div>\n

One such thematic show could be centered around McCusker\u2019s favorite work (so far) in the museum\u2019s collection. It\u2019s a small \u2014 and therefore easily overlooked \u2014 piece by Flemish painter Adriaen Isenbrant, currently hanging in the European galleris. McCusker remaks that it has \u201ca kind of quintessential netherlandish landscape,\u201d and beginning, ever so slightly, to geek out, she begins to talk about the possibilities of using technologies to look beneath the paint layers and see how the work was constructed. The image of the Madonna nursing a baby Jesus also has personal resonance for McCusker. \u201cI see things a little bit differently after motherhood,\u201d she says. A Renaissance painting of Abraham sacrificing Isaac now can bring her to tears.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

McCusker and her six year old son have found a home in the Marmalade district of Salt Lake City. He\u2019s been excited for the move, and especially the opportunity, as a Texas native, to discover winter sports. And they\u2019ve both enjoyed the opportunity to explore a new landscape. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing to live somewhere that\u2019s so beautiful and different,\u201d McCusker says. Whether in the museum’s basement storage areas or hiking in Salt Lake City\u2019s foothills, McCusker says she\u2019s excited to be here. She\u2019ll have plenty to keep her busy and engaged as she navigates the unchartered territory of museum curator in the age of decolonization.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because exhibitions are scheduled months, if not years, in advance, it may be a while before we see the curatorial hand of the Utah Museum of Fine Art\u2019s new senior curator. But, with the goals she has set, Alisa McCusker has plenty to keep herself busy behind the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,14],"tags":[4195,832],"class_list":["post-65654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art_professional_spotlight","category-visual_arts","tag-alisa-mccusker","tag-umfa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221005-UMFA-Curator-McCusker-gallery-tour-001-1-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 02:13:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65654"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97462,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65654\/revisions\/97462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}