Deborah Cullen

Deborah Cullen

Deborah Cullen, PhD, is Executive Director of The Bronx Museum of the Arts, a contemporary art museum that connects diverse audiences to the urban experience through its permanent collection, special exhibitions, and education programs that strive to reflect the borough's dynamic communities. 

From 2012 to 2018, Cullen served as Director & Chief Curator of The Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University in the City of New York, where she oversaw its expansion into the new Lenfest Center for the Arts in Harlem, and initiated the Uptown Triennial. The last project she oversaw, Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today, traveled to the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. 

Previously, Cullen was Director of Curatorial Programs at El Museo del Barrio, New York, where she worked from 1997 to 2012. Cullen’s projects there included participating in the curatorial team and co-editing the anthology for Caribbean: Crossroads of the World (2012); and curating Retro/Active: The Work of Rafael Ferrer (2010, and his 2012 monograph for UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center); Nexus New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis (2009); and Arte ≠ Vida: Actions by Artists of the Americas 1960-2000 (2008), for which she received a 2006 Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award. 

Cullen has had a long affiliation with the late Jamaican-American master printmaker, Robert Blackburn (1920-2003), and his Printmaking Workshop; her dissertation for CUNY Graduate Center focused on his work. She is curating Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, debuting at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 2020. In 2014, Cullen curated Robert Blackburn: Passages for the David C. Driskell Center at University of Maryland, College Park. She also curated Interruption: The 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts (Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2013), and was chief curator of The Hive: The Third Poligraphic Trienal of San Juan (Puerto Rico, 2012). 

Articles Related to Deborah Cullen

2010 Fellowship_Class Portrait (JPG)

2009-10-15

CCL Announces Class of 2010

Emerging Leaders in the U.S. Museum Community Selected as 2010 Fellows Twelve outstanding curators from art institutions across the United States have been selected to participate in the 2010 fellowship program of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL), a non-profit organization that trains curators for leadership positions. Selected by a panel of leading ... Read More >

Core Advancement

2018-06-19

Bronx Museum of the Arts names Deborah Cullen (CCL 2010) as next Director

Bronx Museum of the Arts has named Deborah Cullen (CCL 2010) as their next Director. Deborah participated in the CCL Fellowship in 2010 as Director of Curatorial Programs at El Museo del Barrio, and in 2012 was appointed Director and Chief Curator at the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University in the City of New ... Read More >

Core Advancement

2012-05-12

Deborah Cullen (CCL 2010) Named Director of Wallach Gallery at Columbia University

Congrats to Deborah Cullen on her appointment as director and chief curator of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery.  “Deborah Cullen has the experience and vision not just to plan for and shepherd the move to Manhattanville,” said Nicholas B. Dirks, dean of the Faculty of Arts and ... Read More >

2019-08-13

Kathleen Forde (CCL 2010) named Curator of Experiential Art at PaceX

Kathleen Forde (CCL 2010) has been appointed Curator of Experiential Art at PaceX!  Pace Gallery has recently launched PaceX, an initiative designed to facilitate art and tech commissions around the world, and Kathleen Forde (CCL 2010) has been appointed its Curator of Experiential Art. Forde has been working as an indendepent curator ... Read More >