Posted by Stories of Race and American Sculpture
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Join an exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Led by exhibition curator and art historian Karen Lemmey CC’95, this small-group event offers a unique opportunity to explore how sculpture has shaped — and been shaped by — American conversations on race from 1789 to the present. This event is co-sponsored by the Columbia College Alumni Association and Columbia College Women.
This event is Part I of a two-part discussion on the acclaimed exhibition. Part II will include a virtual interview presentation by Karen Lemmey CC’95 in conversation with Nicole Estilo Kaiser CC’20, director of London’s Public Gallery.
This event is hosted by the Columbia College Women.
Karen Lemmey CC’95 is the Lucy S. Rhame Curator of Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She joined the museum’s staff in 2012 and is responsible for research, exhibitions and acquisitions related to the museum’s sculpture collection, the largest of American sculpture in the world. Lemmey is co-curator of the exhibition “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture.” She also developed exhibitions on Isamu Noguchi CC 1926, Martin Puryear, Hiram Powers and direct carving.
Before joining the museum, Lemmey was a research associate at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and monuments coordinator for New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation. She was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow at The New York Historical and an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Lemmey earned a bachelor’s in art history and holds a doctorate in art history and a certificate in American studies from the CUNY Graduate Center. She became interested in sculpture as a high school student while an apprentice at the studio of Greg Wyatt CC’71, sculptor-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.