Nohl Jurors
Each year, the Nohl Fellows are selected by an independent panel of three recognized visual arts professionals working outside the four-county area. Jurors are chosen for their broad knowledge of contemporary art practices. Since its inception the Nohl Fellowship has intentionally taken into account race, ethnicity, gender, age, geographical location--as well as curatorial interests and the likelihood that the home institution would show a Milwaukee artist—when recruiting jurors.
The 2025 jurors are:
Efe Igor Coleman, Independent Curator, Memphis, Tennessee
Raphael Fonseca, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
Adia Sykes, Independent Curator and Program Manager, United States Artists, Chicago
About the 2025 Jurors
Raphael Fonseca was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He lives in Denver, where he works as a curator of modern and contemporary Latin American art at the Denver Art Museum. Fonseca is also the chief curator of the 14th Mercosur Biennial, which opens in March 2025 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and part of the curatorial ensemble for the next Counterpublic Triennial, which opens in St. Louis in 2026. From 2017-2020, Fonseca was a curator at MAC Niterói (Contemporary Art Museum of Niterói, Brazil). He curated the 22nd SESC Videobrasil Biennale, along with Renée Akitelek Mboya and Solange Farkas (2023).
Fonseca’s research focuses on curating, art history, art criticism, and education. The juxtaposition of different temporalities and how this can trigger contemporary reflections for audiences is crucial in his practice. Humor, absurdity, pop culture, and the notion that an exhibition relates to the ideas of assembly, set design, and spectacle have grown among his research interests. He works with artists from everywhere but with a more significant focus on the ones born and/or based in the so-called Global South. Recently he curated Full gas: visual arts and the 1980s in Brazil (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, 2024); Sandra Vásquez de La Horra: the awake volcanoes (Denver Art Museum, 2024); Raio-que-o-parta: fictions of modern in Brazil (SESC 24 de Maio, São Paulo, 2022), Sweat (Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, 2021) and To-and-fro (Centro Cultural Bank of Brazil, São Paulo, Brazil, 2019). Fonseca holds a PhD in Critic and Art History (State University of Rio de Janeiro). Photo credit: Juan Fuentes
Efe Igor Coleman is an independent curator and a nonprofit administrator. She previously served as the inaugural Blackmon Perry Assistant Curator of African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Her curatorial interests encompass migration, displacement, and diaspora. By engaging with postcolonial and feminist methodologies, she challenges widely held Eurocentric narratives. Coleman is currently a PhD candidate in History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University.
Adia Sykes is an arts organizer, curator, and dancer based in Chicago. Her practice seeks to center philosophies of improvisation, intuition, and care, engaging them as tools through which meaningful relationships between artists and viewers can be cultivated, while leaving space for the vernacular to mingle with constructs of history and theory.
As an administrator advocating for racial equity and sustainable ecosystems for creative practitioners, she has held roles with organizations like Chicago Artists Coalition, where she started their SPARK Grant and as a Lead Organizer of the Chicago Art Census. She has also realized curatorial projects with the Art Institute of Chicago, Centro Arte Opificio Siri in Terni, Italy, Chicago Mayor's Office, Woman Made Gallery, ACRE, Material Exhibitions, and Engage Projects. Adia earned her Masters in Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. Photo credit: Leslie Frempong
Past Jurors
2024
Allison Glenn, Independent Curator and Writer, New York, NY
Misa Jeffereis, Associate Curator, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
Anisa Olufemi, Independent Curator and Fellowship Manager, Hamiltonian Artists, Washington, DC
2023
Jadine Collingwood, Assistant Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Thomas James, Independent Curator and Executive Director, The Last Resort Artist Retreat, Baltimore, Maryland
Kimi Kitada, Jedel Family Foundation Curatorial Fellow at Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri
2022
Jade Powers, Assistant Curator, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Victoria Sung, Associate Curator of Visual Arts, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Toccarra A. H. Thomas, Media and performance artist, film programmer, and arts administrator; currently director of the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, Louisiana
2020
Kimberli Gant, McKinnon Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia
Ashley James, Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Shamim M. Momin, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington
2019
Dean Daderko, Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
Janet Dees, Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University
Jessica Hong, Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College
2018
Lucy Mensah, Independent Curator and Visiting Assistant Professor of Museum and Exhibition Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago’s School of Art & Art History
Risa Puleo, Independent Curator
Ashley Stull Meyers, Co-Curator 2019 Portland Biennial, Portland, Oregon
2017
Michelle Jacques, Chief Curator, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Canada
Allison Peters Quinn, Director of Exhibitions & Residency Programs, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago
Gabriel Ritter, Curator and Head of Contemporary Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art
2016
JoAnne Northrup, Curatorial Director and Curator of Contemporary Art, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno
Valerie Cassel Oliver, Senior Curator at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Julie Rodrigues Widholm, Director and Chief Curator, DePaul Art Museum, Chicago
2015
Jamillah James, Assistant Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Eric May, Executive Director, Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center, Chicago
Jodi Throckmorton, Curator of Contemporary Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), Philadelphia
2014
Courtney Fink, Executive Director, Southern Exposure, San Francisco
Daniel Fuller, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art, Portland
Naima J. Keith, Assistant Curator at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
2013
Naomi Beckwith, Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Evan J. Garza, Exhibitions & Public Programs Coordinator at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Co-founder and Assistant Director of Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR)
Gretchen Wagner, Curator, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis
2012
Lisa Dent, Director, Grants & Services, Creative Capital, New York, New York
Astria Suparak, Director & Curator, Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Irene Tsatsos, Chief Curator/Director of Gallery Programs, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, California
2011
Xandra Eden, Curator of Exhibitions at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Tumelo Mosaka, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Krannert Art Museum, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois
Elizabeth Thomas, Phyllis Wattis MATRIX Curator at Berkeley Art Museum, California
2010
Sheryl Conkelton, art historian/curator/writer, Philadelphia
Nathan Lee, critic/curator, New York
Lucía Sanromán, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
2009
Jennie C. Jones, artist, New York
Toby Kamps, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Barbara Wiesen, Gahlberg Gallery, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois
2008
Eva Gonzalez-Sancho, FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France
Valerie Mercer, Detroit Institute of Arts
Laurel Reuter, North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks
2007
Clara Kim, REDCAT, Los Angeles
Ingrid Schaffner, ICA, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Hamza Walker, Renaissance Society, Chicago
2006
Dominic Molon, MCA Chicago
Alma Ruiz, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Nadine Wasserman, independent curator, New York
2005
René DeGuzman, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Nato Thompson/MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts
Jane Simon, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
2004
Patricia Hickson, Des Moines Art Center
Habib Kheradyar, POST, Los Angeles
Sue Spaid, independent curator, Cincinnati
2003
Lorelei Stewart, Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Tim Peterson, Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis
Barbara Hunt, Artists Space, New York
For further information:
Polly Morris
Lynden Sculpture Garden
2145 W. Brown Deer Rd.
Milwaukee, WI 53217
(414) 446-8794
pmorris@lyndensculpturegarden.org
