Trevor Schoonmaker, Chief Curator and Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Curator of Contemporary Art at Duke University, has been invited as Artistic Director of Prospect.4 (P.4), which is slated to open in the fall of 2017. Schoonmaker joins Executive Director Brooke Davis Anderson in advancing the fourth iteration of the international contemporary art triennial, planned in anticipation of and coordination with the City of New Orleans’ tricentennial.
Trevor Schoonmaker
Since joining the Nasher Museum in 2006 as its first curator of contemporary art, Schoonmaker has been instrumental in developing the museum’s collection of contemporary art. Currently celebrating its tenth year as a major center for the arts on Duke University’s campus, the museum organizes and presents leading-edge exhibitions that travel to institutions worldwide. Past exhibitions curated by Schoonmaker at the museum include: Street Level: Mark Bradford, William Cordova & Robin Rhode (2007); the 2008 retrospective Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool; Big Shots: Andy Warhol Polaroids (2009); The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl (2010); Building the Contemporary Collection: Five Years of Acquisitions (2011); Sound Vision: Contemporary Art from the Collection (2014); and the 2013 exhibition Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey. He is currently working on an in-depth exploration of the complex identity of the American South and the region’s profound influence on American culture.
He is the editor of several exhibition catalogues, as well as the book Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway. In 2001, he co-founded New York’s first Afrobeat club night, Jump N Funk, with DJ Rich Medina, and in 2013 he curated the artwork for Luaka Bop’s LP release of Who is William Onyeabor? A board member of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Schoonmaker holds a Bachelor of Arts in art history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Arts in the history of art from the University of Michigan.
Image: Trevor Schoonmaker. Courtesy Prospect New Orleans.