This curatorial position is now fully funded by a new anonymous gift that established an endowment
EUGENE, Ore. – (July 28, 2022) – Beginning August 1, 2022, Dr. Adriana Miramontes Olivas will join the curatorial team at the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art as the new Curator of Academic Programs and Latin American & Caribbean Art. Miramontes Olivas recently earned her PhD in Art History at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and holds an MA in Art History from the University of Texas at San Antonio. In 2008, she earned her BA in Art from the University of Texas at El Paso.
Miramontes Olivas brings a variety of museum and academic experience to the role, having worked as the Assistant in Museum and Community Engagement in the Department of History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, where she also served as a Teaching Fellow lecturing on World Art. She has also worked for the art gallery at The University of Texas at San Antonio, the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of Texas, El Paso, and the El Paso Museum of Art.
“The museum is delighted to have Dr. Miramontes Olivas join us in this crucial curatorial position,” said John Weber, JSMA executive director. “She’ll be working with UO faculty and students across the curriculum, fostering the growth of Latin American and Caribbean exhibitions and collection, and engaging the Latinx community on campus and off. She emerged from a national search as the unanimous choice of our search committee and brings strong scholarly background, gallery and classroom teaching experience, and new curatorial insights to our program. With a strong foundation in Latin American art history and global contemporary art, she’s poised to move the museum forward, and we are eager to start working together.”
“I am delighted to join the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and the University of Oregon communities. I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute to their ongoing efforts in the pursuit of equity and inclusion in the arts and society at large and I look forward to fostering and maintaining diverse spaces where visibility, agency, learning, and creativity are encouraged through intellectual exchanges and collaborations,” says Miramontes Olivas. “This is an exciting time for Latinx artists and art from Latin America and the Caribbean. As we continue to contest these categories and to redefine the discipline of art history and its institutions, I am eager to engage in these conversations through academic and exhibition programming and working with the collection and la comunidad Latina.”
In addition to the hiring announcement, the JSMA is pleased to announce an anonymous gift to support the museum’s Curator of Academic Programs and Latin American & Caribbean Art in perpetuity. The gift includes an endowment that will fund the full costs of staffing and benefits and support curatorial work and public programs, community engagement, and activities which further the Museum’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and engagement with the Latinx community. The gift will also support the position and programming for the 2022-2023 academic year, before the endowment distributes earnings. This generous gift recognizes the JSMA's long-standing commitment to the museum’s academic mission and its engagement with the Latin American community in Oregon and beyond.
“The hire of Dr. Miramontes Olivas signals the JSMA’s ongoing commitment to diverse and engaged art exhibition programs where education is at the core,” says UO School of Journalism Professor and search committee member Gabriela Martinez. “It also highlights the importance of continue growing the Latin American and Caribbean collection and related exhibitions. The professional and lived experiences Dr. Miramontes Olivas brings will enrich the artistic, intellectual and educational connections between the JSMA and faculty and students across disciplinary boundaries while also strengthening the existing ties to local and state Latinx communities. I’m excited to welcome Dr. Miramontes Olivas.”
The Curator of Academic Programs and Latin American & Caribbean Art will oversee the Latinx collection, which has been the one of the fastest growing areas of art for the museum. Since 2010, the JSMA has accessioned 462 Latinx works more than doubling the previous collection. The museum also connects with over 10,000 university students annually through the academic outreach from this position. Miramontes Olivas will also manage the JSMA’s annual Dia de los Muertos Celebration held on November 1 and 2.
About the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at University of Oregon
The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art was founded to bridge cultures, to create human understanding through art, and in so doing to promote peace and justice. Since reopening over a decade ago, the museum has built on that founding ethos by offering an explicitly and increasingly diverse view of art. At the JSMA, this has meant prioritizing powerful exhibitions such as Carrie Mae Weems’s “The Usual Suspects,” collaborating with the Portland Art Museum to organize “Nuestra Imagen Actual | Our Present Image: Mexico and the Graphic Arts 1929-1956,” exhibiting the internationally touring exhibition “Nkame: A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón,” and many other exhibitions, education programs, and community events that support the UO and help build Lane County’s diversity.
