After a two-year vacancy, the Museum of Fine Arts has gained a new Lorraine and Alan Bressler Curator of Contemporary Art with the recent appointment of Carmen Hermo.
Hermo hails from New York where she was previously the associate curator for the Brooklyn Museum’s Center for Feminist Art. While there, Hermo oversaw the formation of a number of exhibitions, her most notable including María Magdalena Campos-Pons’s “Behold” (2023–2024) and Judy Chicago’s “Roots of the ‘Dinner Party’: History in the Making” (2017).
At the MFA, Hermo will work alongside curators Michelle Millar Fisher and theo tyson as well as the chair of contemporary art, Ian Alteveer, who joined the department in September 2023 and Claire Howard, who joined as the curator of modern art this fall. Hermo stepped into the role after Liz Munsell’s departure from the position in June 2022.
As she found her footing in Boston, I caught up with Hermo to learn more about her vision for the new role and what she hopes to accomplish in her early days with the institution. We discuss what she’s reading and the parts of the collection she’s most excited to dig into.
I was even lucky enough to share a fun fact from Boston’s lesser-known art history.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Jameson Johnson: Let’s start broad. What makes you excited to join the MFA?
Carmen Hermo: I’m thrilled to be joining the MFA at a time when there’s a kind of refreshed excitement around contemporary art. I’m excited obviously about Ian Alteveer’s tenure, getting to work with brilliant curators like Michelle Millar Fisher and theo tyson—seeing their shows during my visit was super inspirational. The “Tender Loving Care” show that’s on view until January just inspired me. I learned about so many new artists and I felt very at home with the themes, not just of new discoveries in one’s own collection—the MFA’s collection is amazing—but also centering ideas of care work and how we relate to each other. It felt so warm and a very fresh way of approaching contemporary art within an encyclopedic museum. Coming from the Brooklyn Museum, I love encyclopedic museums and the encounters and possibilities among all the different communities that come to explore together. So to be able to do that at the MFA, such an illustrious place and collection, is really thrilling.
JJ: “Tender Loving Care” was an exhibition that incorporated a lot of work by Boston-area artists. For the MFA, such a major institution in Boston, that was a big moment for a lot of artists in the area to have their work get collected in addition to being a part of the show. Can you talk about some of the pieces that you are excited about from the MFA’s collection?
CH: I mean, the collection is so vast and inspiring in “Tender Loving Care.” I’m so blown away by works by Clementine Hunter, Deb Kass, Joan Snyder, Doris Salcedo—some of my favorite artists to think about and look at. But I’m also thrilled by the work that they’ve been doing holistically. They recently acquired a major installation by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, her really ground-shifting important trilogy, a history of people who were not heroes, called the Town Portrait. That piece is materially experimental. It’s historically and personally reflective of global narratives around enslavement and architectures of society that come from exploitation but also are places where people build their lives. That major acquisition is actually going to be on view in the survey of Campos-Pons’s work that I curated called “Behold,” which opened September 27 at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville—her new home since she left Boston.
It’s a very beautiful moment to see that major recent acquisition by the MFA join this important survey. It’ll be on view with the full trilogy that she created over many years and many [different types of] media. And I think that shows the investment that the MFA is making in Boston artists, which like you say, is also reflected in “Tender Loving Care.” So as the art world continues to get more global, local communities, reflections, and stories are what really resonate with a community and sharing them is how you build that trust and appreciation.
JJ: I love that the first thing you brought up was Michelle and theo, who have been doing incredible work as specialist curators that have really stepped into programming the contemporary wing. Do you see collaboration remaining part of the contemporary programming?
CH: I hope so, and I know it will be. I love to work collaboratively, and I do think the twenty-first-century museum is a place where many voices need to be heard and understood. Sharing and learning from each other is the best way to make exhibitions or acquisitions or to just think about the museum broadly, so I’m really excited. With an encyclopedic museum, there’s so much knowledge and many different expertises and curatorial fields. I’m looking forward to learning from the other historical departments, as well, and hopefully lots of collaboration.
It seems like Michelle, theo, and Ian have built a department where collaboration, sharing, and learning together is foundational. I feel like that is the way the contemporary museum should be structured. It’s an amazing context to step into this position where these two incredible curators have been holding it down, blazing a trail for contemporary artists to have an important voice at the MFA. And [for] myself, coming from the feminist art context, collaboration, teamwork, and learning from each other feel like foundational work.
JJ: Is there anything that you’re excited to challenge or bring into focus from the MFA’s collection?
CH: For the past eight years I have been a curator of feminist art, very specifically dedicated to a gallery named as a gallery of feminist art. So I think it’s a really amazing moment, in 2024, for an illustrious institution, an encyclopedic institution, to now be seeing feminist art curatorial practice as central and essential to contemporary art. Something that used to be so marginalized and excluded, and even maligned, really, is now something that other curators, artists, and cultural workers have been pushing, to create an art world where a historic museum actually embraces feminist art. I really hope to be able to continue that work and see my appointment to this position as a representation of the good changes that are still happening and that will continue to happen in museums.
JJ: What are you reading right now?
CH: I’m currently reading Horace Pippen: American Modern, which is just fabulous, and I just got my advanced copy of Gender Violence, Art, and the Viewer. I also recently read everything by Boston’s own Ottessa Moshfegh in a fit of obsession; I think about Lapvona and McGlue all the time.
JJ: McGlue is so good! I know you have a busy schedule. How do you ground yourself and get ready for the day?
CH: I will admit to starting my day on my phone, like a lot of people do. But I do try to take it a little bit easy on myself. I walk my dog in the mornings. Sometimes I do a quick fifteen-minute yoga session for the day. I’m a big coffee drinker. Wish I could say I do it in a mindful way, but I feel like I use that time as a strength gathering between the coffee and the fresh air.
JJ: I have a fun fact for you, which you probably know given your scholarship of Judy Chicago and the work you did on “The Roots of The Dinner Party: History in the Making” exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 2017, but one of the earliest presentations of The Dinner Party happened inside the Cyclorama building at the Boston Center for the Arts.
CH: Yes!
JJ: So the triangle lighting structure that was used for the installation is still installed in the Cyclorama. It’s an amazing piece of little-known art history.
CH: Oh my god, this is so wild. I am a scholar of Judy Chicago, so I know about the way Boston’s communities embraced it. The Dinner Party is so iconic. People love the work, but sometimes they don’t realize the tricontinental, sixteen-venue, crowdfunded feminist-centered tour that was constructed by art lovers and feminists who wanted to see The Dinner Party. I had no idea the light’s still there. I can’t wait to go see it.
The Brooklyn Museum did show it as well in 1980. We’re so proud of that history, but it was the people of Brooklyn who fundraised for it. Same with the Cyclorama presentation, but they weren’t just fundraising to schlep The Dinner Party everywhere. As you probably know, Judy and her team wanted to ensure that it was presented to Getty Museum conservation standards. So those lights reflect textile conservation. It’s funny because during my show with Judy in 2017, one of the unsexy fundraising wins was finding money to replace The Dinner Party‘s lights at the Brooklyn Museum. That’s just one of those museum back-of-house things everybody loves at The Dinner Party, but the lights hadn’t been updated in decades.
JJ: Maybe there’s an opportunity to dig into the history of the Cyclorama’s lights, too! Carmen, we’re so excited to have you in Boston. Is there anything else you want to share?
CH: It’s such a big change to be leaving New York, but I’m so excited to dig into Boston. I curate work by living artists, emerging artists, performance art—art that you need to really experience in the place where it’s growing from. I’m excited that that’s something I now get to do in Boston, which is such an exciting art city. I chose this city for a reason. Like you said, the people come to the institutions, the people create the art community.
