Jane Panetta is a

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

-based curator and art historian. Panetta is currently an associate curator at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

Career

Curating

Before working at the Whitney, Panetta spent five years in the Painting and Sculpture Department of the

Museum of Modern Art, New York The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...

as a curatorial assistant, where she was involved with MoMA's 2007

Richard Serra Richard Serra (November 2, 1938 – March 26, 2024) was an American artist known for his large-scale Abstract art, abstract sculptures made for Site-specific art, site-specific landscape, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings, a ...

retrospective and the 2009 retrospective on the Belgian artist

James Ensor James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic ...

. The Whitney Museum hired Panetta in 2010 as a Curatorial Researcher. She worked her way up to assistant curator followed by an appointment as associate curator in 2015. At the Whitney, she was part of the curatorial team that curated the 2015 show: “America Is Hard to See,” the museum's first collection show at its new home in the

Meatpacking District The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street. The Meatpacking Business Improvement District alo ...

. Also with the Whitney, Panetta organized “Fast Forward: Painting from the 1980s (2017)” and “Mirror Cells,” with Christopher Y. Lew, the co-curator of the 2017

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

. She has also curated solo presentations by Willa Nasatir and

MacArthur Genius The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and 30 individuals workin ...

awardee

Njideka Akunyili Crosby Njideka Akunyili Crosby (born 1983) is a Nigerian-born visual artist working in Los Angeles, California. Through her art, Akunyili Crosby "negotiates the cultural terrain between her adopted home in America and her native Nigeria, creating collag ...

. Panetta curated the

2019 Whitney Biennial This is an incomplete list of Whitney Biennial artists selected for the Whitney Biennial exhibitions of contemporary American art, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in 193 ...

with

Rujeko Hockley Rujeko Hockley is a New York–based US curator. Hockley is currently the Arnhold Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Life and education Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, Hockley relocated to Wa ...

. In selecting the 75 artists for the show, Panetta and Hockley selected predominantly minority, female artists who live and work on the West or East Coast of the United States, among other commonalities. When asked about their selections towards younger artists of color, the curators explained that they found other common threads in the struggles among artists today including "a sense of urgent financial and professional struggle due to college debt, real-estate development, and gentrification."

Writing and academia

Panetta contributed to a survey book on

, published by MoMA in 2009 to accompany an exhibit at the museum. In the early 2010s, Panetta wrote frequently for publications '' Art in America'' and ''

Modern Painters Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...

''. Alongside her curatorial work, she is also an adjunct faculty member at

Parsons The New School for Design The Parsons School of Design is a private art and design college under The New School located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhattan art ...

. She received a bachelor's degree in history from

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Fr ...

and a master's degree in art history from

CUNY The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

. As of 2015, Panetta was working to complete her PhD, with a focus on

modern Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...

and contemporary sculpture, at

The Graduate Center, CUNY The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Division of Graduate Studies at City University ...

. Panetta is a member of

Madison Square Park Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for Founding Father James Madison, the fourth president of the United St ...

’s Public Art Consortium.

External links

Whitney Biennial 2019 - organized by Jane Panetta, associate curator, and Rujeko Hockley, assistant curatorPanetta talks to ''Cultured Magazine'' about Mirror Cells show

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Panetta, Jane Living people American art curators American women curators American art historians American people of Italian descent American women art historians People associated with the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) People associated with the Whitney Museum of American Art Year of birth missing (living people)