Visiting Artist Lecture: Yesomi Umolu

Yesomi Umolu is the exhibitions curator at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, where she also holds the position of lecturer in the Humanities division.

Specializing in global contemporary art and spatial practices, Umolu recently curated So-called Utopias (2015) at the Logan Center Gallery. Prior to joining the Logan, Umolu was the assistant curator at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at MSU where she curated Material Effects: Contemporary Art from West Africa and the Diaspora (2015), John Akomfrah: Imaginary Possessions (2014), and The Land Grant: Forest Law (2014). Umolu was previously a curatorial fellow for Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, where she curated The Museum of Non Participation: The New Deal (2013). She also held curatorial positions at the European biennial of contemporary art Manifesta 8, region of Murcia, Spain and the Serpentine Gallery, London. She has also contributed to programming at Iniva and Tate Modern, London.

Umolu’s projects have received grant awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Harpo Foundation, the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and the British Council. Her writing has appeared in numerous catalogues and journals, including Art in America, Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism and the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Studio magazine. Umolu received an MA with honors in Architectural Design from the University of Edinburgh and an MA with Distinction in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London. She is a 2016 recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation Curatorial Fellowship.