Nora Burnett Abrams

Nora Burnett Abrams is the Mark G. Falcone Director of MCA Denver. Her curatorial career began at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she worked on the Sol LeWitt on the Roof and Robert Rauschenberg: Combines exhibitions. Since arriving in Denver in 2010, she has organized over 30 exhibitions and authored or contributed to nearly a dozen accompanying publications. Recent projects have highlighted unusual or unknown episodes in artists’ careers such as Basquiat Before Basquiat (2017), as well as the first survey of Senga Nengudi’s R.S.V.P. sculptures (2014). She curated the first U.S. exhibition of Romanian painter Adrian Ghenie and an in-depth study of Ryan McGinley’s earliest photographs and never-before-seen Polaroids. Her upcoming projects include a retrospective of American artist Tara Donovan. Abrams leads the museum's senior team, setting strategies for operations, communications, marketing, and fundraising for the organization, as well as augmenting its role as a cultural driver of the city’s current, unprecedented growth. She has taught art history at New York University and lectured throughout the country on modern and contemporary art. She holds art history degrees from Stanford University (B.A.), Columbia University (M.A.), and a Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.

Articles Related to Nora Burnett Abrams

2017-11-01

Center for Curatorial Leadership Announces 2018 Fellows

Twelve Curators Selected for 2018 Leadership Training Program The Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) has selected twelve curators to participate in its annual fellowship program for 2018. The incoming class of Fellows will join the organization in New York City in January for an initial two weeks of instruction, followed ... Read More >

2018-01-31

Program Highlights | 2018 Fellows Complete January Session of the CCL Fellowship

Highlights from the two-week January intensive of the Center for Curatorial Leadership annual leadership program This January, the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) welcomed its eleventh class of Fellows for a two-week leadership intensive in New York City. A group of twelve curators from institutions across the United States convened ... Read More >

2018-05-24

Program Highlights | 2018 CCL Fellowship Wraps Up in Houston

The 2018 Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) Fellowship concluded this May with a weeklong intensive in Houston, Texas. Over the course of the final convening, the Fellows expanded on their lessons from the five-month period of the program and explored various models of museum leadership. Through Houston’s rich cultural landscape ... Read More >

2019-08-20

Nora Burnett Abrams (CCL 2018) Named Director of the MCA Denver

Congratulations to Nora Burnett Abrams (CCL 2018) on her appointment to the Mark G. Falcone Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver! Most recently the Ellen Bruss Curator and Director of Planning, Abrams has been at the MCA Denver since 2010. She has curated 0ver 30 exhibitions while at the museum, including Tara ... Read More >

2021-03-11

Lauren Haynes (CCL 2018) Named Senior Curator at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University

Lauren Haynes (CCL 2018) has been named the Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Senior Curator at the Nasher Museum of Art!  Since 2016, Lauren has served as the curator of contempoary art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, in addition to serving, since 2020, as the Director of ... Read More >