SANTA BARBARA.- The Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) is pleased to announce the addition of Julie Joyce as the new Curator of Contemporary Art. Ms. Joyce comes to Santa Barbara most recently from the Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex at California State University, Los Angeles, where she served as Gallery Director/Curator. She is due to begin her formal duties at SBMA on September 15.

Ms. Joyce has nearly 20 years experience working in various prestigious museums including the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

Her in-depth knowledge of art in Los Angeles has shaped highly successful exhibitions for midcareer talents including Jack Goldstein, Todd Gray, Patrick Nickell and Marnie Weber. She has curated seven nationally traveling exhibitions, such as the acclaimed Kim Jones: A Retrospective (2006-08) (co-curated with Sandra Firmin). Major site-specific installations she has organized include those by Jessica Bronson, Minerva Cuevas, Hew Locke, and Yunhee Min; group exhibitions she has curated include [keep feeling] Fascination (2006) and Hard-Boiled Wonderland (2001). She has also brought to Los Angeles significant projects by Charles Gaines, General Idea, David Reed, and others; and was part of the exhibition committee for African American Artists in Los Angeles, A Survey Exhibition (2004-05). Three exhibitions that Ms. Joyce curated received nominations for “Best Show” awards by the International Association of Art Critics USA section.

“All of us at the Museum are extremely pleased and excited to have Julie join us,” states SBMA Director Larry Feinberg. “She has developed an international reputation for the many groundbreaking, important, and thoughtful exhibitions she has organized. She has earned much respect in the contemporary art world and from the artists themselves because she looks and listens with an open mind, rather than imposing her own point of view on the works of art. She tends to think about art the way an artist does, and about how the works speak to the larger culture.”

Ms. Joyce is equally as excited about the new position in Santa Barbara. “I’m thrilled to be joining the team at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art particularly as it enters a new and exciting chapter under the direction of Larry Feinberg,” says Ms. Joyce. “The Museum’s distinguished history includes an early and ongoing engagement with and commitment to contemporary art. I’m looking forward to collaborating with the Museum staff, its Trustees, and supporters to further this endeavor in novel and meaningful ways, and to raise the organization’s status to an international level. It will be a great pleasure to be in Santa Barbara among a dynamic community that is so deeply invested in its civic and artistic culture.”

In addition to her extensive work directly on exhibitions, Ms. Joyce has been a frequent contributor to Art issues magazine, and her essays have appeared in catalogues published by The MIT Press, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), and other institutions. She has lectured and been a panelist at a variety of venues including the California Institute of the Arts, Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA and has taught at the California State University, Los Angeles, Whittier College in Whittier, CA, Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, and University of Southern California, Department of Fine Arts.

Larry Feinberg concludes by saying, “Given her immeasurable talents, I have no doubt that she will very quickly take SBMA to the leading edge of contemporary art, developing shows of international prominence. I am also very happy that, despite her international range of interests, she is determined to keep close watch of California and local artists, and to support them. I believe that we have some fascinating, challenging, and fun exhibitions in store for us.”

Ms. Joyce received her B.A. in Fine and Communication Arts from Loyola Marymount University and M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.