THE COLBY COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART announced the appointment Erica Wall. An arts leader with two decades of experience, she will serve as director of the Lunder Institute for American Art.
Located in downtown Waterville, Me., the Lunder Institute was established in 2017 as the research and creative arm of the museum. Inviting artists, scholars, and museum professionals to collaborate with Colby students and faculty, the Lunder Institute supports scholarship and provides a platform for dialogue and creative production. Visiting artists have included Theaster Gates, Torkwase Dyson, and Daniel Minter. Romi Crawford, Adrienne L. Childs, and artist Dread Scott (2021-22), are among recent fellows of the institute.
Erica Wall brings two decades of experience as an arts leader to her new position as director of the Lunder Institute for American Art | Photo courtesy Lunder Institute
Wall is joining the Lunder Institute from the MCLA Arts and Culture at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Mass., where she currently serves as director.
“I am thrilled that Erica will now lead the Lunder Institute and become a member of the Colby Museum’s senior team,” Colby College Museum of Art Director Jacqueline Terrassa said in a May 10 statement.
“Erica looks beyond the conventional to ask harder questions that have not been asked. She then partners responsively to create the proof of concept–programs and platforms that sustain artists, curators, scholars, students, educators, and others to not only see what is possible, but to forge relationships and pursue pathways that sustain their work and a life in the arts.”
“Erica looks beyond the conventional to ask harder questions that have not been asked. She then partners responsively to create the proof of concept–programs and platforms that sustain artists, curators, scholars, students, educators, and others…”
— Colby College Museum of Art Director Jacqueline Terrassa
An educator, curator, community builder, and advocate for artists, Wall joined MCLA in 2019 as director of the Berkshire Cultural Resource Center. Since last summer, she has led MCLA Arts and Culture, a resource for artists, students, faculty, and the local community, where programming includes a contemporary art gallery, artist residencies, and partnerships with other colleges and museums.
Earlier in her career, Wall held education positions at Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, Calif.; Museum of Fine Art Boston; and J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
In her new role, Wall is expected to “advance the mission of the Lunder Institute as a leading incubator and convener of scholarship and artistic practice in ways that evolve how American art is understood and how it is studied, taught, interpreted, and made.” She officially joins the Lunder Institute on July 1.
“I am excited and honored to lead an institute that provides the community the opportunity to engage in the discussions and explorations that celebrate, challenge, and illuminate the many layers of American art, its past, its present, and its future,” Wall said in a statement.
“I look forward to expanding my work as a collaborator, convenor, and community builder to create a national and global community around the amazing work the Lunder Institute has done and has yet to do.” CT
FIND MORE about Erica Broussard, the gallery Erica Wall founded in Santa Ana, Calif.
FIND MORE Erica Wall recently talked about her career path and commitment to artists with Shoutout LA and Voyage LA
BOOKSHELF
“Bob Thompson: This House Is Mine” documents the 2021-22 exhibition organized by Colby College Museum of Art, first museum exhibition dedecated to the artist in more than 20 years. Recent volumes from Theaster Gates include “Theaster Gates: Black Madonna,” “Theaster Gates: Every Square Needs a Circle,” “Theaster Gates: Black Chapel,” and “Theaster Gates: Facsimile Cabinet of Women Origin Stories: Reflections,” from DelMonico Books/Colby College Museum of Art. Phaidon published a monograph of Gates in 2015. “Theaster Gates: A Clay Sermon” is forthcoming in August. “McArthur Binion: DNA:Work and the Under:Conscious Drawings” features an interview between artists Torkwase Dyson and McArthur Binion. Dyson also contributed to “Dawoud Bey: Two American Projects.” Adrienne L. Childs published “Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition” to accompany the recent exhibition she curated at the Phillips Collection. Also consider, “The Lunder Collection – a Gift of Art to Colby College.”
