OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – The Artists’ Legacy Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of Franklin Sirmans, Director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, to its Board of Directors. Mr. Sirmans has led PAMM since 2015, where he has overseen over 1,000 acquisitions, strengthened community relationships, and established new programs like the Latin American and Latinx Art Fund. Prior to his role at PAMM, Sirmans was the Department Head and Curator of Contemporary Art at LACMA; Artistic Director of 2014 Prospect New Orleans biennial; and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Menil Collection in Houston, TX. He has also served as a curatorial advisory committee member at MoMA/PS1.
Mr. Sirmans joins board president Squeak Carnwath, artist; Gary Knecht, community advocate; Leah Levy, director of The Jay DeFeo Foundation; Sandra Shannonhouse, artist and trustee of The Robert Arneson Trust; Timothy Rub, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Caroline Black, program manager of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
Mr. Sirmans has dedicated his career to celebrating artists, their work, and their influence on our communities. Through essays, lectures, and curatorial projects, he has encouraged closer examination of important cultural and historical moments through the lens of art.
Squeak Carnwath says, “Sirmans is a radical force for good in contemporary art. His work as curator and as director of the Perez Art Museum Miami has re-imagined the place museums can occupy in our communities. He has been doing the work of inclusion and access since he first began writing and curating. Sirmans has helped make PAMM one of the most responsive museums in the country when it comes to showing artists of color, south and Central American artists as well as local artists of Miami.”
“I am honored to join artists supporting artists through the Artist’s Legacy Foundation. I was fortunate to be a juror for the Artist’s award in 2014, where I met the fearless co-leader Squeak Carnwath, whose work I already admired, and I have remained interested and connected to the foundation and its leaders ever since.”, says Franklin Sirmans. “I am delighted to join the board at this pivotal point in time and to help continue supporting the legacy of Viola Frey and granting the Artist’s Award which has gone to such important artists including Howardena Pindell, Jim Nutt, Suzan Frecon and John Outterbridge amongst others.”
Franklin Sirmans
Mr. Sirmans is the Director of the Perez Art Museum Miami. He has formerly served as Department Head and Curator of Contemporary Art at LACMA; Artistic Director of 2014 Prospect New Orleans biennial; and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Menil Collection in Houston, TX. He curated notable exhibitions including Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada at LACMA (2016); NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith (2008-09), which traveled from the Menil Collection to MoMA PS1 and the Miami Art Museum; and Basquiat at the Brooklyn Museum (2005). Mr. Sirmans is a David C. Driskell Prize Winner (2007). His writing has been published in The New York Times, Art in America, Essence Magazine, and Art News. He served as editor-in-Chief of ArtAsiaPacific magazine and was an editor of Flash Art magazine.