Associate Curator, Guggenheim Museum, New York
In 2019, Ashely James became the Guggenheim’s first-ever full-time Black curator. Her debut exhibition at the institution, ‘Off the Record’ (2021), took the journalistic phrase as its guiding metaphor and, with the work of 13 artists including Adrian Piper and Carrie Mae Weems, comprised an exploration at once thorough and trenchant of narratives that have been left out of official histories. Prior to joining the Guggenheim, she was assistant curator at the Brooklyn Museum where she led the museum’s presentation of ‘Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power’ (2018–19), first staged at the Tate in 2017. James holds a PhD from Yale University in English literature and African American studies and has contributed essays and research for books, magazines, and catalogues, including publications on Charles White, Palmer Hayden, and Howardena Pindell.
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