Emily Zimmerman is an accomplished curator and arts leader, with 20 years of experience and an extensive and multifaceted background in museum curation and arts education. Zimmerman is the Director of Exhibitions and Curatorial Affairs at the Arthur Ross Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania, where she has taught the Spiegel-Wilks Curatorial Seminar in Curating Contemporary Art for the Department of the History of Art. In 2024 Zimmerman wrote a $240,500 grant awarded from the Pew Center for Art and Heritage to the Arthur Ross Gallery, the first in the gallery’s history.
From 2017-2022 she was the Director + Curator of the Jacob Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington’s School of Art + Art History + Design, where she advocated for artists, and worked with students to become active participants in their arts ecology. During her tenure at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Emily increased support for under-represented artists through new and expanded commissions, including the Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency, which supported the creation of new work by Black artists from around the country, and an annual curatorial fellowship for graduate students of color. In 2017, she launched MONDAY, a W.A.G.E.-certified journal that presented experiments in arts writing, which she edited until March 2022.
In total, she has curated more than 50 commissions, solo and group exhibitions with artists such as Pierre Huyghe, Jesper Just, Guadalupe Maravilla, Kerry Tribe, and Marisa Williamson. She has also produced 300+ events, including lecture series, film series, performances, festivals, and workshops. Prior to joining the Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Zimmerman served as the Associate Curator of Programs at the Henry Art Gallery, where much of her work focused on building institutional partnerships and offering accessible off-site programming. She began her curatorial career as the Associate Curator at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), organizing film and lecture series, and commissioning new work from artists such as Melvin Moti, Ryan & Trevor Oakes, and Gordon Hall. Her writing has appeared in BOMB and Contemporary Performance, and she has served on review panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, New York State Council on the Arts, Artist Trust, 4Culture, and the Herb Alpert Awards, among others. Emily earned her MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and her BA from New York University.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
2007, Masters of Arts, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College
2002, Bachelors of Arts, New York University
Professional Experience
Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania
Director of Exhibitions and Curatorial Affairs (June 2024 – present)
Interim Director of Exhibitions and Programs (September 2023 – May 2024)
Assistant Director (April 2022 – September 2023)
Jacob Lawrence Gallery, University of Washington
Director + Curator
2017-2022
Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington
Associate Curator of Public Programs
2015-2017
Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer
Curatorial Assistant; Assistant Curator
2008-2015
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Curatorial Intern, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art
2007
Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
Curatorial Intern
2004
Location One
Program Coordinator
2001-2003
Teaching
Visiting Lecturer | Department of the History of Art | University of Pennsylvania
2023-present
Instructed ARTH 3970: Spiegel-Wilks Curatorial Seminar in Curating Contemporary Art during the fall semester of 2023.
Visiting Lecturer | School of Art + Art History + Design | University of Washington
2017-2022
Provided instruction in Art 496: Curating Contemporary Art and Art 590: Interdisciplinary Graduate Seminar in Professional Practices, teaching two courses annually.
Grants/Residencies/Panels
2024
Panelist, The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation Grant
Visiting critic, Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania
2023
Fellow, Association of Art Museum Curators Curatorial Digital Leadership Fellowship
2022
Panelist, National Endowment for the Arts, Museum Panel
2020
Reviewer for the 2021 Creative Capital Awards
Conference Benefit Committee, Association of Art Museum Curators 2020 Conference
Advisory board for the University of Washington School of Art + Art History + Desig
2019
Panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, Museums Panel
Conference Benefit Committee, Association of Art Museum Curators 2020 Conference
Juror for the James W. Ray Award, from The Artist Trust | Frye Art Museum Consortium
Committee member for the Seattle Arts Leadership Team (SALT)
Advisory board for the University of Washington School of Art + Art History + Design
2018
Juror Gallery 4Culture 2018-2019 Season
Panelist for On the Boards NW New Works Festival
Advisory board for the University of Washington School of Art + Art History + Design
2017
Panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, Media Arts Panel
Juror for INTERSTATE, Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Central Washington University
Advisory board for the University of Washington School of Art + Art History + Design
2016
Juror for the TWIST: Seattle Queer Film Festival
Career Incentive Fund Grant from the New Foundation Seattle
Panelist for the Herb Alpert Awards in the Arts
Banff Centre Literary Arts Residency
2015
Reviewer for the MAP Fund
Participant in PICA’s Creative Exchange Lab
Board of Directors, Wave Farm (Acra, NY)
2014
Panelist for NYSCA’s Electronic Media & Film Grant Program
2013
Panelist for NYSCA’s Electronic Media & Film Grant Program
Panelist for NYSCA’s Individual Artists Grant Program
2012
Panelist for NYSCA’s Media Distribution Grant
2011
Lori Ledis Curatorial Fellow, BRIC Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, NY
Two-week curatorial residency in Busan, Korea at Space Bandee
2010
Awarded Best Emerging Curator by the editors of the Metroland.
Speaking Engagements
Moderator, “Voices + Voids: Reclaiming and Transcoding Our Data as Performance” with University of Washington Assistant Professors Audrey Desjardins, Afroditi Psarra, and Bonnie Whiting on November 20, 2020.
Moderator, “Local Voices: Collaboration at the University of Washington” Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) Art Curators Conference 2020 online on May 4, 2020.
Conversation, “Multiple Voices to Build Inclusion” organized by the Association of Art Museum Curators at the Seattle Art Museum on November 13, 2018.
Conversation, “Lauren Mackler + Emily Zimmerman (with special guest Cally Spooner)” for the Seattle Art Fair Talks on artist experiments with public access television on August 5, 2016.
Moderator, “Looking Back to Look Forward: Art & Technology” at General Assembly as part of Made in Seattle Week on June 11, 2016.
Talk, “Commissioning new work at the intersection of art, science, and technology,” Microsoft’s Studio 99, December 9, 2015.
Talk, “The Museum of Obsolescence,” The Lost Museum Symposium, Brown University, May 6 – 8, 2015.
Talk, “Skins, Screens, and Interface: Artbreak with Emily Zimmerman” Henry Art Gallery, February 7, 2015.
Moderator, “The Jaffe Colloquium: Held in Trust” at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, on May 1-2, 2014.
Talk, “Held in Trust” at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on March 27, 2014.
Panelist, “Feminism, Technology, and Visuality,” as part of the Now! Visual Culture conference at New York University on June 2, 2012.
Moderator, “The Periphery of Perception” panel discussion with Ryan and Trevor Oakes, Michael Benson, and Damien James at EMPAC on April 18, 2012.
Talk, “New York Performance Art Since 1960,” at Dongeui University Art Department (Busan, Korea), October 11, 2011.
Emily Zimmerman 