The Brooklyn Museum has announced that Darienne “Dare” Turner will be its first full-time Curator of Native Art. Turner, who is currently associate curator of indigenous art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, will take up her post at the New York institution in August. In her new role, Turner will be responsible for curating exhibits that expand the canon and expand the museum’s collection of Indigenous art. Many of the more than 13,600 works held by the museum were made by peoples such as Hopi, Kwakwaka’wakw, Miaidu, Osage, Pomo and Zuni.
“The Brooklyn Museum is committed to fighting the exclusion and erasure of Indigenous peoples,” said Anne Pasternak, director of the Brooklyn Museum. “Drawing on her considerable expertise, Turner will help us think critically about our engagement with Indigenous communities and our significant collection of Indigenous art.
Turner, a registered member of California’s Yurok Tribe, joined the BMA in 2017, becoming the first Indigenous person to serve as a curator there. Before coming to the Baltimore institution, she taught graphic design at the Maryland Institute College of the Arts. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and an MA in Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center. Her essay “Terrestrial Gateways to the Divine” appeared in the catalog of the Bard Graduate Center exhibition “Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in Time and Place” (2018-2019); THE New York Times named the volume one of the best art books of 2018.
“The Brooklyn Museum’s collection is nothing short of remarkable, and I’m thrilled to work alongside brilliant colleagues and members of the Indigenous community to share it with the public,” said Turner. “The opportunity to represent a historical collection in an institution dedicated to rethinking representation was an opportunity I could not pass up. The works of art entrusted to the museum offer the keys to understanding who we are as living indigenous communities, and they shed light on how indigenous people have thrived on this continent since time immemorial.
