By Rebeca Piccardo/News Director
rebeca.piccardo@fiusm.com
As chief curator, Carol Damian directed the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in its transition from a small gallery space to a prominent structure at the University since 2008.
Six years later, Damian is setting aside the business aspect of her art to get back into her research and other endeavors.
“I had the honor to launch the new Frost Art Museum, an extraordinary building with great potential to become a world-class university museum, in one of the most dynamic cities in the world,” said Damian in a statement to the University.
Provost Kenneth Furton announced his new appointee, Jordana Pomeroy, in an e-mail to the University to take Damian’s place as director of the museum on Jan. 5.
Pomeroy worked as chief curator in the National Museum of Women in the Arts for 16 years and, most recently, served as the executive director of the Louisiana State University Museum of Art for about two years.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in art history from Bryn Mawr College and her master’s and doctoral degree at Columbia University.
“[In LSU,] Pomeroy doubled museum membership, overhauled the exhibition programming, wrote a new strategic plan, galvanized staff and built active participation and support from the community,” said Furton in his e-mail.
Pomeroy will build upon Damian’s work with the museum, expanding research and carrying out its mission to “enrich and educate local, national and international audiences through the language of art.”
During Damian’s tenure as the museum’s chief curator, she revamped the museum’s image, since the space moved from a 3,000 square-foot space in 2008 to the current 46,000 square-foot facility.
In his e-mail, Furton thanked Damian for her service, noting her leadership help raise the museum’s profile and bring key exhibitions to the University.
For example, last spring’s major exhibit that attracted visitors from all over Miami-Dade County, was “Capture the Moment: The Pulitzer Prize Photographs,” held from February to April.
Damian will serve as a full-time faculty member of the Department of Art and Art History in the College of Architecture and the Arts.
“I am really looking forward to being more creative with my research and writing and teaching,” Damian said. “Running a museum is a business venture and now it is time to move on from the paperwork.”
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