Mary Jane Jacob

Mary Jane Jacob is a curator and writer who has championed public, site-specific, and socially engaged art. Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in 2018 she published Dewey for Artists with the University of Chicago Press. She is currently organizing an exhibition of pioneering Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz for Tate Modern in London.

As Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), she opened the Sullivan Galleries in 2008 in the famed Louis Sullivan Carson Pirie and Scott Building in the city’s Loop. As the public arm of SAIC, the galleries play a central role in fostering cooperation among the wider Chicago arts community and the field-at-large. Furthering its position in fostering critical thinking and open dialogue, Jacob also launched in 2016 SAIC’s Institute for Curatorial Research and Practice, which she now directs.

Jacob seeks to address the working processes of artists and, at the same time, the processes that audiences undergo, with a belief that the art experience can transform us in valuable ways and, in turn, the culture and society in which we live. This drives her research—manifested in her many publications, lectures, exhibitions, and other curatorial projects—and informs her teaching as a shared understanding with a stake in the future.

Education

• MA in History of Art with Museum Orientation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• BFA, University of Florida, Gainesville

Books and Edited Volumes

• Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope (London Tate Publishing, 2022).
• Dewey for Artists (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
• Chicago Social Practice History Series: Art Against the Law, Immersive Life Practices, Institutions and Imaginaries, A Lived Practice, and Support Networks. Co-edited with Kate Zeller. (Chicago: SAIC, distributed by the University of Chicago, 2014-15)
• Chicago Makes Modern: How Creative Minds Changed Society, co-edited with Jacquelynn Baas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). Also contributed introduction, essay “Like Minded: Jane Addams, John Dewey, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy,” and two artist interviews
• Grain of Emptiness: Buddhist-Inspired Contemporary Art (New York: Rubin Museum, 2010)
• The Studio Reader: On the Space of Artists, co-edited with Michelle Grabner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010)
• Learning Mind: Experience Into Art, Mary Jane Jacob and Jacquelynn Baas, co-editors (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). Also contributed introduction, essay “Being with Cloud Gate,” and co-authored “The Empty Conversation”
• Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art, Jacquelynn Baas and Mary Jane Jacob, co-editors (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). Also contributed introduction, essay “In the Space of Art,” and twelve artist interviews
• Conversations at The Castle: Changing Audiences and Contemporary Art (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998)
• Culture in Action: New Public Art in Chicago (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995). See also Culture in Action PDF (Temporary Service, 2015)
• Places with a Past: New Site-Specific Art in Charleston (New York: Rizzoli International, 1991).  Essay “Making History in Charleston” reprinted in Documents of Contemporary Art: Situation, Claire Doherty, ed. (London/Cambridge: Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press, 2009) 

Selected Recent and Forthcoming Published Essays

• “The Art of Being in the World” in Being: Spirituality in Contemporary Art (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, 2018)
• “Pedagogy as Art,” in Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles & Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art, eds. Gregory Sholette and Chloe Bass (New York: Allworth Press and & Social Practice Queens, 2018)
• Interview with Kimsooja in Kimsooja (Leichtenstein: Kuntsmuseum Leightenstein, Vaduz, 2018)
• Interview with Mark Dion in Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist (New Haven: Yale University Press and Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2017)
• “Thinking Through Dewey,” in Reclaiming Art. Reshaping Democracy (Paris: Les Presses du Réel, 2017)
• “The Gedankenexperiments of Katie Paterson” in Katie Paterson (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and Bielefeld/Berlin, Germany: Locus+ and Kerber Verlag, 2016). Reprinted in Katie Paterson (exhibition catalogue) Centre PasquArt Kunsthaus, Biel, Switzerland in French and German, 2016
• “Audiences Are People, Too: Social Art Practice as Lived Experience” in The Blackwell Companion to Public Art (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016)
• “The Curatorial Commons: Places with a Past,” ASAP/Journal (The Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present), issue no. 1 (January 2016, Johns Hopkins University Press)
• “Curating Consciousness: Inviting the Unknown,” in The Ways of Folding Space & Flying: A Project by Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho (Arts Council Korea, 2015) for the 56^thEsposizione Internazionale d’Arte/La Biennale di Venezia
• “Chicago Is Culture in Action,” in Exhibition as Social Intervention: “Culture in Action” (London: St. Martin’s Press, Afterall Books, Exhibition Histories series, 2014)
• “Il Nuovo Ordine,” in Alfredo Jaar (Chile Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2013)
• “Essential Empathy,” in Kimsooja (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz and Vancouver Art Gallery, 2013)
• “A Shared Research,” essay in Alternative Public Art Anthology (Hamilton, NJ: ISC Press, distributed by University of Washington Press, 2013)
• Tom Finkelpearl, What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013), chapters on “Culture in Action” projects by Daniel J. Martinez and Mark Dion
• “Experience as Thinking” in Art as a Thinking Process: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2013)
• “Louise Bourgeois’s The Touch of Jane Addams” in Public Art Dialogue volume 3, issue 1 (London: Routledge, 2013) 

Selected Recent Lectures

• “Seoul as Museum” 2^nd annual international conference, Seoul Metropolitan City (2017)
• “Transforming Maze/Long Kesh Prison: The vital role of contemporary dialogical Art and architecture in dealing with contentious heritage,” Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast (2017)
• Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (2017)
• Independent Curators International, New York at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, “Curator’s Perspective” series, (2017)
• Institute for Public Art conference, Hong Kong (2017)
• Sam Durant, “Meeting House,” The Old Manse, Concord, Trustees of Reservations “Art & the Landscape” program (town hall meeting leader at First Parish Church, Concord, 2016)
• Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway (2016)
• Verein Shedhalle, Zurich, “The Whole World in Zurich—Third Harbour Forum: Doing City” (2016)
• “Public Enquiries” symposium, Valand Academy, Goethenberg, Sweden (lecture 2016; also published 2017)
• Reykjavík Art Museum (2015)
• Public Art Norway, Oslo, “Critical Issues” series (2015)
• University of Auckland, New Zealand (Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland and Shandong University, China), “Cities in a Climate of Change: Public Art, Environmental and Social Ecologies” (2015)
• Auckland Council, Arts and Culture (2015)
• Alloy Pittsburgh, Carrie Furnaces National Historic Landmark in Braddock, Pennsylvania project (2015)
• Folkestone Triennial, England, “The Sculpture Question” (2014)
• Walker Art Center and University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (2014)
• ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark, “The Artist Studio and the Art Museums” (2014)
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Niteroi/Rio, “Art/Environmental Action: Contemporary Encounters between Art and Society”(2013)
• Tokyo, Tokyo University of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, International conference “Social Practice - Art and Sustainability” (2013)
• London, Central St. Martins MA Research in Exhibition Histories program (2013) 

Media

• "Tania Bruguera, Lucy Lippard, and Others on the Power of Social Practice Art: Conversations in Social Practice Art presents a diverse range of approaches to art that prioritizes social engagement" (Hyperallergic, 2018)
• “Who Are the Most Influential Curators of the Last Century? 19 Art-World Tastemakers Weigh In” (artnet news, 2017)
• Kalia Brooks, “Mary Jane Jacob interviewed by Kalia Brooks,” Jamaica Flux: Workspaces & Windows 2016 (New York: Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, 2016): 14-19.
• “A Lived Practice. Vivere la comunità.: intervista a Mary Jane Jacob” (Declinazioni di Comunità, 2015)
• Martin Krenn, “The Political Sphere in Art Practices” (2015)
• Show Time: The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art, Jens Hoffmann, ed. (London: Thames and Hudson, 2014), chapters on “Places with a Past” and “Culture in Action”
• Rachel Craft, “Planning Social Practice: An Interview with Mary Jane Jacob,” Art 21 Magazine (September 17, 2014, September/October 2014)
• Biennials and Beyond: Exhibitions that Made Art History: 1962-2002, Bruce Altschuler, ed. (London: Phaidon, 2013), chapter on “Places with a Past”
• Michael Brenson, “Places with a Past: New Site-Specific Art in Charleston Belongs to its Place and Time", The Brooklyn Rail (July 15, 2013)
• “Public Art: Consequences of a Gesture. A Journey into the Curatorial Landscape with Mary Jane Jacob,” On Curating, interview conducted by Monika Molnár and Tanja Trampe for issue on role of artistic and curatorial authorship (Issue 19 / June 2013)
• Two-part interview by Caroline Picard, “The Energetic Persistence if Water: An Interview with Mary Jane Jacob.’ Part 1 on art21.  Part 2 on Bad at Sports. (2012)
• Interview by Daniel Tucker, Never the Same Interview (2012)
• Interview by Duncan MacKenzie with Mary Jane Jacob, Bad at Sports (2009) 

Recent SAIC Exhibitions

• “A Proximity of Consciousness: Art and Social Action,” Sullivan Galleries, SAIC, 2014. Co-curated with Kate Zeller.  See Chicago Social Practice History Series (Chicago: SAIC, distributed by the University of Chicago, 2014-15)
• “News from Nowhere: Chicago Laboratory” (Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Jooho), Sullivan Galleries, SAIC, 2013.
• “Studio Chicago,” Sullivan Galleries, SAIC, a collaborative program, 2010. See also The Studio Reader: On the Space of Artists (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010)
• “Learning Modern,” Sullivan Galleries, SAIC, part of a citywide collaborative program, 2009.  “Living Modern Chicago” See Chicago Makes Modern: How Creative Minds Changed Society  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012) 

Past Curatorial Posts

• Curator, Spoleto Festival USA, Charleston, South Carolina
• Consulting Curator, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
• Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
• Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
• Associate Curator of Modern Art, Detroit Institute of Arts 

Other Academic Affiliations

• Distinguished Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts
• Moscow, visiting professor, II Moscow Curatorial Summer School
• Basler Chair of Excellence for the Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric, and Science, College of Arts and Sciences, East Tennessee State University
• Founding Board member, Mitglieder des Universitatsrates der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany
• Guest Professor, DAAD, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany, Public Art and New Artistic Strategies Program
• Adjunct Faculty, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 

Fellowships and awards

• The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Research Fellowship
• Getty Residency Visiting Fellowship, Bard College, New York
• Peter Norton Family Foundation Curator’s Grant
• National Endowment for the Arts, Museum Professional Fellowship Grant
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
• Bellagio Study Center Residency, The Rockefeller Foundation
• Honoree “30 most influential women in the art world,” ArtTable, New York
• Achievement in the Field of Public Art Award, Public Art Dialogue, College Art Association
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Women’s Caucus for Art, College Art Association 

Archives

The Mary Jane Jacob Papers, Library and Archives, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale Hudson, New York