He's served as the DMA's first Senior Curator of Contemporary Art since moving here in 2009, and now Jeffrey Grove gets a bump via another fancy title. The Dallas Museum of Art announced this morning that Grove is the institution's new Senior Curator of Special Projects & Research. That's a big deal, because until now that job hadn't existed.
In fact, it's the second coolest title Grove has ever had. The first being Founding Curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. -- but that was a lifetime and many business cards ago.
This freshly created role will stretch out Grove's duties to include exploring new "research initiatives and the development of collaborations with living artists." He'll continue organizing special exhibitions, like his upcoming survey on installation artist Jim Hodges (it drops October, 2013), but will also find ways to thoroughly round-out those conversations by including the artists' own voices and perspectives -- giving added context to the DMA's already dense collection of modern art as well as new, internationally collaborative exhibitions.
It all vibes well with Maxwell Anderson's mission. He's been a champion for international partnering and increased arts communication since taking office a year and a half ago. Add on that Grove's passion to give voice to artists is well-known around Dallas and you can consider this a win-win. I'd also wager it's a predictive sign of future curatorial expansions.
Grove currently has three exhibitions in the works: There's his joint-organized Jim Hodges survey in October 2013 (partnered with Olga Viso of the Walker); an Isa Genzken retrospective (co-organized with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art) set to unveil in September, 2014; And a sexy show featuring works on film, paper and painting by Michaël Borremans, which was co-organized with the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels. We'll get that last one in March of 2015.
