Olga Viso

Olga Viso joined the Museum in 2022 on a part-time basis as a curator-at-large and a senior curatorial advisor. In her role, she curates original exhibitions, oversees new artist commissions, and advises on overall collections and curatorial strategies.

She brings 30 years of experience working in art museums, both as a curator of contemporary art with a focus on Latin American art and as a museum administrator. Previously, she served as director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2007-2017) and as director and curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC (1995-2007).

Viso has curated numerous landmark solo and group exhibitions, including monographic surveys of artists Jim Hodges, Guillermo Kuitca, Ana Mendieta, and Juan Muñoz. Her most recent exhibition, Juan Francisco Elso: Por América, opened at New York’s El Museo del Barrio in October 2022 and will travel to Phoenix Art Museum in May 2023, where it will be presented in conjunction with an exhibition highlighting the ASU Art Museum’s signature collection of contemporary Cuban art.

Along with her work at Phoenix Art Museum, Viso continues in her capacity as a senior advisor at ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, where she develops academic partnerships for the university with art museums (including PhxArt) and supports the ASU-LACMA master’s fellowship program in art history, a collaboration between the university and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that invests in the advancement of museum professionals of color already working in museums.