WATER MILL, NY.- The Parrish Art Museum has been awarded a multi-year grant from the Century Arts Foundation to underwrite the position of Parrish Curator of Special Projects Andrea Grover. Beginning in January 2015, Grover’s new title is Century Arts Foundation Curator of Special Projects. Century Arts Foundation is a private organization that facilitates the development of new cultural and artistic opportunities in the United States and Mexico.
According to Parrish Art Museum Director Terrie Sultan, “With this long-term support, the Museum can continue its work and realize bold new enterprises that position the Parrish as an internationally recognized Museum and a locus for cultural and community engagement on the East End of Long Island. Andrea Grover brings extraordinary vision, groundbreaking ideas, and inventive approaches to viewer participation with art across all media. We are fortunate to have her on our staff and fortunate that the Foundation shared our enthusiasm for her creativity, and supports her efforts so generously.”
Grover, who joined the Parrish in January 2011 as Associate Curator, has initiated many new projects that have placed the Parrish in the forefront of cross-discipline innovation in the arts. Parrish Road Show, launched in 2012, has enabled the Museum to reach beyond its physical walls with artist-initiated projects in unlikely venues such as Montauk’s Camp Hero State Park, Duck Creek Edwards Farm in East Hampton, and the Hallockville Museum Farm in Riverhead. The Platform series, which encourages artists to look at the Museum spaces and the Permanent Collection in new ways, has featured Maya Lin, Josephine Meckseper and Hope Sandrow, and will present Tara Donovan in 2015. In addition, Grover has overseen more than 250 programs ranging from PechaKucha, a fast-paced international presentation series featuring 10 presenters in myriad creative fields, to the world premiere of Galápagos, an original theatrical production based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel.
Grover’s most recent endeavor is the major exhibition and accompanying publication Radical Seafaring, scheduled for Spring 2016, which has garnered a prestigious Exhibition Award grant from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and a research and development grant from the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Foundation and the Association of Art Museum Curators.
From 1998–2008, Andrea Grover was the Founding Director of Houston’s Aurora Picture Show, a non-profit cinema specializing in multi-disciplinary performances and screenings. In addition to ten years of programming at Aurora, she has curated film programs for both the Dia Art Foundation and The Menil Collection.
Grover was a Core Fellow in residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 1995-1997, a Warhol Curatorial Fellow with the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA from 2010-2011, and Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellow, New York, NY in 2013. Grover holds an MFA in visual arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BFA from Syracuse University.
At the Parrish, Grover is the curator of Parrish Road Show, a summer exhibition series designed to connect creativity to everyday life by presenting exhibitions and programs at alternative locations—from public parks to historic sites—across the region. The 2014 Road Show artists were Evan Desmond Yee and Michael Combs. Grover also curates Platform, the Museum’s ongoing series of artist-driven projects that embrace experimentation and unconventional approaches to exhibition and programming. Recent Platform artists include Maya Lin, Josephine Meckseper, and Hope Sandrow, with a forthcoming project by Tara Donovan in 2015. Grover also programs the nearly 100 music, theater, film screenings, panel discussions, and other public events at the Museum.
