IN MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., the Walker Art Center named Taylor Jasper assistant curator of visual arts. The appointment was announced Jan. 10. A member of a growing team in the Visual Arts department, Jasper’s portfolio will span exhibitions, acquisitions, artist projects, and public programming. She is joining the Walker from The Momentary, a contemporary art space in downtown Bentonville, Ark., where she was a curatorial associate.
Jasper was born in Richmond, Va. After beginning her career in the South, working at art museums in Virginia and Arkansas, she is headed North to Minneapolis to take on her new role.
Curator Taylor Jasper. | Photo by Natalie Zeta
“We are delighted to welcome Taylor Jasper, a rising talent, to our curatorial team. Taylor has developed a multivalent curatorial practice that is grounded in commitment and passion for collaboration, experimentation, and meaningful engagement with artists and audiences. We look forward to working with Taylor and know that her distinct voice, vision, and perspective will greatly impact the Walker’s Visual Arts program, cross-disciplinary initiatives, and collections development,” Henriette Huldisch, the Walker Art Center’s chief curator and director of curatorial affairs, said in a statement
Jasper’s curatorial practice focuses on emerging artists and she has thrived collaborating with figures such as Olalekan Jeyifous, Auriea Harvey, and Kandis Williams. At The Momentary, a satellite of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, she worked on a range of projects with a wide variety of artists, including recent exhibitions that involved paintings, sculpture, mixed-media works and clothing, as well as indoor and outdoor installations, ceramic workshops, and more: “A Divided Landscape” (2022), “Esteban Cabeza de Baca” (2022), and “In Some Form or Fashion” (2021-22).
The Walker Art Center’s “experimental spirit and dedication to artists speaks directly to my curatorial priorities.” — Taylor Jasper
Prior to The Momentary, Jasper was a curatorial research assistant at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond (2017-20), where she was a member of the curatorial and editorial teams that produced “The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse,” both the exhibition and related catalog. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in Africana studies and art history at The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
Jasper joins the Walker Art Center on Jan. 25. In a statement she said: “I am excited to begin my position as Assistant Curator at the Walker Art Center—an institution whose experimental spirit and dedication to artists speaks directly to my curatorial priorities. I look forward to working together with the Walker’s passionate team and its vibrant communities to engage this legacy of artistic risk, while supporting artists’ practices.” CT
FIND MORE the exhibition “Kahlil Robert Irving: Archaeology of the Present” opens at the Walker Art Center on Feb. 23
BOOKSHELF
“The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse” was published to accompany the exhibition Taylor Jasper supported and Valerie Cassel Oliver organized at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
