Thelma Golden
Keynote Speaker - Conversation Three

Thelma Golden is the Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem.  Ms. Golden 
joined the Museum as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs in 2000 before succeeding 
Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, the Museum's former Director and President, in 2005.  

Since her arrival at the Studio Museum, Ms. Golden has organized a number of groundbreaking 
exhibitions, including Freestyle (2001); Frequency (2005-06, with Christine Y. Kim); Black 
Romantic: The Figurative Impulse in Contemporary Art (2002); Glenn Ligon: Stranger (2001); 
Kori Newkirk: 1997-2007 (2007-08); Africa Comics (2006-07), Chris Ofili: Afro Muses (2005); 
harlemworld: Metropolis as Metaphor (2004); Martin Puryear: The Cane Project (2000); and 
Isaac Julien: Vagabondia (2000).  She has played a major role in expanding and strengthening 
the Museum's presence in the local community and the global art world. 

Before taking on her current role at the Studio Museum in 2000, Ms. Golden was the Special 
Projects Curator for renowned contemporary art collectors and philanthropists Peter Norton and 
Eileen Harris Norton.  Prior to this position, she was at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 
where she joined as a full-time curatorial assistant in 1988.  Over her decade at the Whitney, 
Golden rose quickly though the ranks of the museum staff, building a distinguished reputation as 
an innovative curator.  She organized many notable exhibitions, including the watershed 1993 
Biennial, directed by Elizabeth Sussman; Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in 
Contemporary Art (1994-95); Bob Thompson: A Retrospective (1998); Heart, Mind, Body, Soul: 
New Work from the Collection (1998); and Hindsight: Recent Work from the Permanent 
Collection (1999).  

In 1991, Ms. Golden was named the Director and Exhibition Coordinator at the Whitney 
Museum branch at Phillip Morris, and in 1993 was promoted to Associate Curator and Director 
of Branch Museums.  At Phillip Morris, holding true to her support and championship of 
emerging artists, she conceived and organized a site-specific commissioning program.  Through 
this program, she presented 18 projects with artists such as Alison Saar, Glenn Ligon, Gary 
Simmons, Romare Bearden, Matthew McCaslin, Suzanne McClelland, Lorna Simpson, Y. David 
Chung, Jacob Lawrence, and Leone & MacDonald.  Ms. Golden also served as the Visual Arts 
Director at the Jamaica Arts Center in Queens, New York from 1989 to 1991.

In addition to her current work at The Studio Museum in Harlem, Ms. Golden is an active guest 
curator, writer, lecturer, and advisor on matters relating to contemporary art, cultural issues, and 
the curatorial practice nationally and internationally.  In 2008, she was a member of the advisory 
team for the Whitney Biennial exhibition and acted as a juror for the 2007 Turner Prize.  In 2004, 
she curated a retrospective of fashion designer Patrick Kelly for the Brooklyn Museum, and co-
curated the 2005 traveling exhibition Glenn Ligon: Some Changes.  She is celebrated for her 
insightful interviews with contemporary artists, and frequently contributes to books, catalogues, 
and magazines.  Her essays are featured in publications on Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, 
Bill T. Jones, Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Bob Thompson, and Gary Simmons, 
among others.  

Ms. Golden regularly speaks at institutions around the world, including the Museum of Modern 
Art, New York; the ICA, Philadelphia; Harvard University; the San Francisco Museum of 
Modern Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Royal College of Art, 
London.  In 2009 she spoke at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) in Palm Springs, CA.  
Ms. Golden has held visiting faculty positions at various universities, such as Yale, Columbia, 
Cornell and Bard.  Additionally, she serves on the Graduate Committee at the Center for 
Curatorial Studies at Bard College and on the boards of Creative Time and NYC & Company in 
New York and the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) in London.  She has served as 
part of funding and selection panels for many organizations and foundations, such as the Pew 
Charitable Trust, the Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions, and the National 
Endowment for the Arts.  She is the 1997 recipient of the Peter Norton Family Foundation 
Curator Grant and was named a 2008 Henry Crown Fellow at The Aspen Institute. 

Ms. Golden was born and raised in New York City.  She holds a BA degree in Art History and 
African-American Studies from Smith College (1987).  In addition, she holds honorary degrees 
from the City College of New York (2009), San Francisco Art Institute (2008), Smith College 
(2004), and Moore College of Art and Design (2003).