The Hope of Abstraction: The Art of Cullen Washington Jr.

Vera Grant, curator of the UMMA exhibition Cullen Washington, Jr.: The Public Square, presents an expansive look at the exhibition, and the artist’s recent series, Agoras. The compositions explore the ancient Greek public space as a site for activated assembly, through the dual lens of race and humanity.

Vera Ingrid Grant is an art consultant, curator, and writer, living in Ann Arbor, MI. Grant served as Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, and curator of modern and contemporary art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) in 2018-19. Previously, she was the founding director of the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art at the Hutchins Center, Harvard University. She most recently curated Cullen Washington, Jr.: The Public Square; Reflections: An Ordinary Day. Grant has an MA in Modern European History from Stanford University with a concentration in comparative studies of race and visual culture and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Hamburg. She was the Associate Director for the Program in African and African American Studies (2001-2007) at Stanford University. She was a fellow (2015-16) at the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL).

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