Positive/Negative 39
Curated by Michelle Fisher, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
February 12 – March 8 at Slocumb Galleries East Tennessee State University 325 Treasure Lane Johnson City, TN 37614
Positive/Negative 39 exhibition will be held from February 12 to March 8, 2024 at the Slocumb Galleries. A juried exhibition is a survey of diverse, creative, innovative and excellent examples of contemporary art created in the American South.
About the Juror:
Michelle Millar Fisher is currently the Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work focuses on the intersections of people, power, and the material world. At the MFA, she is working on her next project, “Craft Schools: Where We Make What We Inherit” which took her on a train journey across all 48 contiguous US states, as well as the upcoming contemporary collection reinstallation called “Tender Loving Care.” As part of an independent team, she leads “Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births,” a book, touring exhibition, and series of programs. Find it on Instagram at @designingmotherhood. The recipient of an MA and an M.Phil in Art History from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, she received an M.Phil from and is currently completing her doctorate in art history at The Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY). She is widely published, and has received numerous fellowships, including from the Pew, Sachs, and Graham Foundations, and DAAD. Previously, she was The Louis C. Madeira IV Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where she co-organized “Designs for Different Futures” in 2019. From 2014-2018 she was a Curatorial Assistant at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where she co-organized, among other exhibitions, “Design and Violence” and “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” In 2010-11, she was a research intern in Arms & Armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2011, she co-founded ArtHistoryTeachingResources.org, a Kress Foundation-funded project now used in over 185 countries. In 2019, she co-founded Art + Museum Transparency, home to the Salary Transparency Spreadsheet. She was part of the 2022 fellow cohort at the Center for Curatorial Leadership.
The Slocumb Galleries are educational exhibition venues of the Department of Art & Design under the College of Arts and Sciences at East Tennessee State University.
Our Mission is to develop creative excellence, foster collaborations, promote inclusivity and encourage critical thinking by providing access to and serving as inclusive platforms for innovative ideas and diverse exhibitions. The Slocumb Galleries promote the understanding, presentation and appreciation of contemporary art in support of the academic experiences and the cultural development of the region, through collaborative programming with various units and community institutions.
Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay is an Appalachian-based Filipinx curator, artist advocate and arts administrator. She is gallery director for the ETSU Slocumb Galleries and its satellite venue in Downtown Johnson City, Tipton Gallery. She has organized and curated numerous exhibits both nationally and abroad, juried regional exhibitions and has lectured in the Philippines, Japan and the United States. Contreras-Koterbay graduated with honors from the University of the Philippines with a B.A. in anthropology and an M.A. in art history. She is former director of the MidSouth Sculpture Alliance, and member of the IKT International Association of Contemporary Art Curators, International Council of Museums, Southeastern College Art Conference, and International Association of Aesthetics. Grant recipient of the Tennessee Arts Commission APS and ABC grants, Hope in Action and Arts Fund of East Tennessee Foundation, Tennessee Craft and SouthArts as well as the Andy Warhol Legacy grant. Contreras-Koterbay received the ETSU Distinguished Staff Award in 2013 and the Jan Phillips Mentoring Award in 2015. She is Director of the Crafting Blackness Initiative, a five year collaborative research, publication and exhibition series to advance the visibility of Black Craft and African American artists in Tennessee since 1920 up to present. Her BIPOC and diversity art proigramming received numerous awards from the Tennessee Assocation of Museums (TAM).
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