The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) has announced that Valerie Cassel Oliver, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), will receive the 2022 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence.

Former recipients are among others Thelma Golden in 2016 and Okwui Enwezor in 2009. For twenty-three years, the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence has celebrated the achievements of a distinguished curator whose lasting contributions have shaped the way we conceive of exhibition-making today. The award, which is accompanied by a 25,000 USD prize, reflects CCS Bard’s commitment to recognizing individuals who have defined new thinking, bold vision, and dedicated service to the field of exhibition practice.

About Valerie Cassel Oliver
Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to her position at the VMFA, she was Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Over her curatorial career, she has organized numerous exhibitions including the acclaimed Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970 (2005); Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art (2012) and Howardena Pindell: What Remains to be Seen co organized with Naomi Beckwith (2018). Most recently, she opened the exhibition, The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic Impulse, to critical acclaim.  The exhibition is currently touring through February, 2023.
Cassel Oliver is the recipient of numerous recognitions and awards including a fellowship from the Center of Curatorial Leadership (2009); the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Award (2011); the James A. Porter Book Award from Howard University (2018) and most recently, the Alain Locke International Arts Award, Detroit Institute of Art, and the College Arts Association’s Excellence in Diversity Award both 2022.  She holds an Executive MBA from Columbia University, New York; an MA in art history from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a BS in communications from the University of Texas at Austin.

Valerie Cassel Oliver will be honored at a gala celebration and dinner in New York City alongside 2020 Award Recipient Connie Butler, Chief Curator at the Hammer Museum at UCLA. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 6, 2022, at Manhattan West Plaza in New York City and is co-chaired by Lonti Ebers, CCS Bard Board of Governors member, and Martin Eisenberg, Chairman of the CCS Bard Board of Governors. The event is supported by Lonti Ebers.

To purchase a ticket or table see the below options, or contact Ramona Rosenberg at 845.758.7574 or rrosenberg@bard.edu.