Description:
THE
POSITION
PEM is committed to generating fresh interpretations
and new appreciation for historic and contemporary Chinese art and cultural
expressions, including those from diverse diasporic communities. The museum
seeks a creative and innovative curator with specific experience working with
Chinese vernacular art, architecture, and history, and a strong commitment to
PEM’s forward-thinking interpretation and programming goals.
The Curator of Chinese Art and Culture will be an
innovative storyteller who will bring bold, imaginative thinking to PEM’s
cross-departmental programs and exhibitions, and will be able to confidently
engage diverse audiences with exhibitions and programs that compel new thinking
about human creativity, material culture, social history and the contemporary
relevance of historical objects. The curator will be an enterprising team
player with an exploratory mind who, in addition to re-thinking the interpretive
approach and design of PEM’s Yin Yu Tang gallery, will also organize collections-based
and traveling exhibitions and participate in a robust set of programs, organized
collaboratively with staff in other departments. Recent PEM-generated Chinese
exhibitions includeThe
Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City
andEmpresses
of China’s Forbidden City, both organized with the Palace Museum,
Beijing, andPower
and Perspective: Early Photography in China.
The curator will have the opportunity to build the collection
through a combination of the Museum’s acquisition funds, support from a
dedicated Visiting Committee, and targeted fundraising. The successful
candidate will partner with the development staff in stewarding the Visiting
Committee, donors, collectors and supporters of acquisitions, and will play a significant
role in helping to raise funds for exhibitions, special projects, publications,
and broader Museum initiatives. The Museum provides travel funds to support
research and networking, as well as funds for professional memberships and
development.
PEM’s culture is collaborative, and curators regularly work across
collections and departments, celebrating intersections and discovery, to create
immersive, out-of-the-box visitor experiences. The curator will work closely
with the entire PEM curatorial team, particularly the Curators of Maritime Art
and History, Photography, and Asian Export Art, and across all museum
departments, but specifically with Exhibition Planning and Design, Learning and
Civic Engagement, Collection Services, and Marketing and Communications, to
ensure that the program achieves the highest professional standards of
creativity, innovation, quality, relevance and visitor engagement.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Exhibitions:
- Lead the project team to develop and
realize an innovative new interpretive gallery and associated programming
for Yin Yu Tang
- Organize exhibitions and collection
installations that consistently:
- Reflect and advance trends in the field
- Deliver original, dynamic, and
interdisciplinary concepts that create broadly appealing experiences
- Explore connections between the
historical and the contemporary
- Enhance PEM’s reputation, patronage, and
relationships with other museums and cultural and community partners
- Attract positive critical attention
- Build and sustain partnerships with peers
and other museums to:
- Secure or co-organize traveling
exhibitions that match the above profile
- Oversee the installation, production,
and generate programming for incoming traveling exhibitions
- Ensure that PEM has a slate of quality
exhibition options from which to choose to create a balanced, highly
appealing, impactful and cost-effective exhibition program
- Place PEM exhibitions in strategic
venues
- Collaborate with relevant departments to
develop public and patron programs that appeal broadly to audiences
regionally, nationally, internationally and online
Cultivation:
- Cultivate and secure direct support for
museum-wide initiatives and specific projects on an annual basis from
individuals, patron groups such as Visiting Committees, foundations,
corporations, and government agencies
- Collaborate with other curators, executive
leadership, development staff, and trustees to accomplish fundraising
goals
The Collection & Acquisitions:
·
Ensure the ability of
the collection to support PEM strategic goals far into the future
- Develop collecting goals and an action
plan that address a five-year horizon; identify and justify specific key
areas and examples; estimate overall value or costs associated with goals;
identify ways to secure new sources of support for acquisitions, and
enhance the Visiting Committee’s membership, activities, support and
understanding of the museum’s acquisition goals
- Secure works of superlative quality to
strengthen the museum’s ability to display and interpret the collection,
attract visitors and patrons, and make strategic loans to other museums’
exhibitions
·
Promote the collection
as an intellectual, learning, and research resource for the benefit of the
public
·
Strategically add
works to the collection to expand its scope and build on existing strengths
·
PEM holds as one of its core
values the commitment to stewarding its collection for current and future
generations of people in Massachusetts, the United States, and the world. PEM
is committed to the ideals of diversity, equity, inclusion and access, and this
curator must steward and expand a collection that represents these values
·
Welcome audiences of
all backgrounds, races, ethnicities, religious affiliations, sexual
orientations and gender identifications to the museum
by collecting and acquiring works that reflect and represent these diverse
constituencies
·
Periodically reassess
collecting priorities
·
Ensure appropriate
access to the collection and related information for PEM staff, the museum
community, scholars, collectors, and the public, including the differently
abled and those with sensory sensitivities
·
Provide adequate and expansive
documentation of the collection
Leadership and Collaboration:
- Create new approaches, build awareness
and support for Chinese art and culture at PEM
- Identify and implement strategies for
interdisciplinary and intra-collection experiences and connections between
the historical and contemporary
- Write and lecture for PEM and for
strategic high-profile and peer-review outlets in ways that recognize both
the museum and the curator as leaders in the field
- Lead or serve on teams and task forces to
plan and implement specific projects and museum-wide initiatives that
align with PEM’s strategic planning
- Collaborate with the Curatorial Team
and across the museum, especially with Exhibition Planning and Design,
Learning and Civic Engagement, Collection Services, Development, and
Marketing and Communications, on a variety of projects
- Develop and administer realistic budgets,
work plans, and schedules, and practice accountability