IN RICHMOND, VA., the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University appointed Jessica Bell Brown its next executive director. ICA at VCU opened its doors in 2018. In less than a decade, the young institution has established itself as a dynamic space with a formidable contemporary art program engaging with local and regional figures as well as some of the most interesting national and international artists on the horizon. In addition to exhibitions, ICA programming includes films, performances, lectures and panels, publications, and a media center that centers storytelling serving as a production studio and workshop space for podcasts.
Brown is joining ICA from the Baltimore Museum of Art where she is curator and head of contemporary art. She will officially step into her new role on Oct. 28.
“I am excited to welcome Jessica to this vital role,” VCUarts Dean Carmenita Higginbotham said in a statement. “Jessica will bring significant expertise as well as a unique vision to the ICA. I am so looking forward to working with Jessica to grow the ICA’s reputation and to generate new and innovative opportunities for our students, our faculty and staff and the broader arts communities.”
Jessica Bell Brown. | Photo by Justin T. Gellerson
IN 2019, BROWN JOINED the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) as associate curator of contemporary art and became head of the department in 2022. During her tenure at BMA, she co-curated with Ryan Dennis “A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration,” a national touring exhibition featuring newly commissioned works by 12 artists: Akea Brionne, Mark Bradford, Zoë Charlton, Larry W. Cook, Torkwase Dyson, Theaster Gates Jr., Allison Janae Hamilton, Leslie Hewitt, Steffani Jemison, Robert Pruitt, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, and Carrie Mae Weems.
Launched at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Miss., in 2022, the exhibition traveled next to the Baltimore Museum of Art and has also been presented at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y., California African American Museum in Los Angeles, and is currently on view at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), through Sept. 22.
Brown also organized “Thaddeus Mosley: Forest” (2021), “Martha Jackson Jarvis: What The Trees Have Seen” (2023-24), and “Tiona Nekkia McClodden: Play Me Home” (2023-24) at BMA. Under her leadership, the museum has acquired more than 150 works of art broadening representation in the permanent collection of Baltimore-based and regional artists; women artists; and African diasporic, BIPOC, and Indigenous artists. She was also instrumental in establishing the Sherman Family Foundation Residency and Valerie J. Maynard Foundation internship program at the BMA.
In previous roles, Brown served as the consulting curator of Gracie Mansion Conservancy where she organized “She Persists: A Century of Women Artists in New York” (2019) and “Catalyst: Art and Social Change” (2020) at the official residence of New York City’s mayor. She was also a Mellon Museum Research Consortium fellow at the Museum of Modern Art, where she worked in the Department of Painting and Sculpture. Brown earned an M.A. in modern and contemporary art from Princeton University, and received B.A. in art history from Northwestern University.
“Jessica will bring significant expertise as well as a unique vision to the ICA. I am so looking forward to working with Jessica to grow the ICA’s reputation and to generate new and innovative opportunities for our students, our faculty and staff and the broader arts communities.”
— VCUarts Dean Carmenita Higginbotham
ICA’S CURRENT EXHIBITION pays homage to Amaza Lee Meredith (1895–1984), a pioneering artist, educator, and first Black queer woman known to be a practicing architect in the United States. Born in Lynchburg, Va., Meredith established the art department at Virginia State University, an HBCU in Petersburg, less than half an hour from Richmond. “Dear Mazie” opened Sept. 6. The group exhibition is organized by ICA Curator Amber Esseiva, who commissioned 11 contemporary artists, designers, and architects to make new works in response to Meredith’s under-known life, work, and legacy. Two concurrent exhibitions of Loie Hollowell and Caitlin Cherry also focus on women artists with ties to Richmond.
The new fall season reflects the unique and visionary programming for which the institution is known. ICA is a non-collecting institution with free admission. From its beginnings, ICA has presented a mighty exhibition program, providing a platform for a spectrum of artists to test ideas and present thought-provoking, often research-based works.
“Declaration,” ICA’s inaugural exhibition, opened on April 21, 2018, a year into a presidency that rocked the political and democratic foundation of the United States. Co-curated by Stephanie Smith (then-chief curator), Lisa Freiman, and Esseiva, with Johanna Plummer and Lauren Ross, the group show featured 35 artists from Richmond and around the world representing multiple generations. The diverse roster included Tania Bruguera, Sonya Clark, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Titus Kaphar, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., Autumn Knight, Lee Mingwei, Tavares Strachan, Levester Williams, and Paul Rucker, an artist-in-residence at the time, who is now on faculty at VCU.
The curators offered a profound summary of the exhibition: “Why Declaration? Declarations mark beginnings, clarify intentions, and propose a social contract. This is true whether we think about something as private as a declaration of love between two people, or as public as the Declaration of Independence. Declarations invite response, whether we agree or disagree. They can take many forms—words, actions, works of art.”
Introducing the show, the curators made a declaration of their own about ICA’s path forward: “We believe in the socially transformative power of art and artists. We declare that this power can be unleashed through many kinds of artistic practices and the deliberate inclusion of many voices. We commit to activating the ICA as an inclusive platform to research, support and share art’s transformative power.”
Exterior View — Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. | Courtesy ICA at VCU
In the years following, ICA has presented a variety of themed exhibitions as well as solo shows of artists such as Paul Chan, Naima Green, Rashid Johnson, Guadalupe Maravilla, Harold Mendez, Cauleen Smith, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Patrice Renee Washington, dana washington-queen, and The Otolith Group, a collective of artists Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar.
“Kandis Williams: A Field” (2020-21) was a site-specific commission in which the Los Angeles artist addressed power structures and forced labor on prison farms in Virginia through works spanning collage, video, sculpture, and installation. “Commonwealth” (2020-21) grew out of a partnership with two other institutions: Philadelphia Contemporary in Philadelphia, Pa., and Beta-Local in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Exploring notions of equity, the group exhibition considered, “How could we reimagine wealth and come together for common good?”
IN JULY, ICA was integrated into VCU’s School of the Arts. When the announcement was made, Higginbotham told VCU News: “This partnership will enable us to build on the close and collaborative relationship that VCUarts and the ICA have enjoyed for years, allowing new and innovative opportunities for students and faculty to engage in critical creative research while maintaining a deep commitment to community engagement.”
As incoming executive director, Brown is expected to chart the path forward in terms of exhibitions and public programming, providing an environment where exceptional artists and scholars from around the world can explore new artistic terrain. At the same time, she must harness the connections between ICA and VCUarts mentioned by Higginbotham.
“I am beyond thrilled to lead the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, an institution that I have admired as a leading voice in the field of contemporary art today,” Brown said in a statement. “The ICA is a beacon for artistic excellence and freedom, grounded in the potency of ideas, collaboration and exchange. My time in Baltimore has been nothing short of amazing, and I look forward to bridging the incredible relationships and community I’ve been privileged to be part of here, with the thriving creative community in Richmond and its broader cultural ecosystem.” CT
FIND MORE about Jessica Bell Brown on Instagram where she reflected on her appointment at ICA
FIND MORE about Black Space Matters, an ICA at VCU video series with food justice advocate Duron Chavis visiting Black-owned farms and green spaces and discussing land ownership, sustainable agriculture practices, climate change, social justice, and why black space matters
FIND MORE about Black Grounds, a lecture series presented in collaboration with VCU’s Department of Art History that has featured Cherise Smith, Thomas J. Lax, and Emory Douglas, and “seeks to offer critical and historical context to regionally and nationally grounded discourses of Black identity and belonging, as well as globally imagined geographies of Black diasporic and Pan-African community”
BOOKSHELF
Jessica Bell Brown co-edited the exhibition catalog “A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration” and a Critical Reader that accompanied the show, with Ryan N. Dennis. “Baldwin Lee” features an interview conducted by Brown with Baldwin Lee about his photographs of African Americans in the U.S. South and she wrote the introduction to the exhibition catalog “Mario Moore: The Work of Several Lifetimes.” Brown has also contributed to several other publications, including “Theaster Gates: Young Lords and Their Traces,” “Janiva Ellis: Rats,” “Firelei Báez,” and the new monograph “Nari Ward: Ground Break.”
