Telfair Museums Director and CEO Lisa Grove is pleased to announce Rachel Reese as the new associate curator of modern and contemporary art. Working with the museum’s curatorial team, Reese will be responsible for developing and guiding the focus of growing the modern and contemporary art program. These duties include conceiving, organizing, and coordinating innovative and engaging exhibitions, as well as overseeing the management and growth of Telfair Museums’ collection of modern and contemporary art.

“We are delighted to welcome Rachel’s creativity and talent to the Telfair team,” said Grove. “Although Telfair Museums has actively collected contemporary art from the time of its founding in 1886 through the present day, this is the first time in the institution’s history that we will have a curator devoted specifically to modern and contemporary art. We all look forward to the energy and focus Rachel will bring to our modern and contemporary collections and exhibitions.”

Reese is a curator, arts writer, and independent publisher. Before joining Telfair Museums, she was with the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center where she served as Communications Manager since 2013, working to significantly increase the audience and visibility of the institution through partnerships and programs.

"I'm excited to contribute to the Savannah arts community and enhance the role Telfair Museums occupies in Savannah, the Southeast, and beyond,” Reese said. “I'm thrilled to join such an invested institution and engaged group of colleagues at the museum. With a respected historical commitment as well as an immense appetite for the future, I anticipate great joys ahead overseeing strategies for modern and contemporary collection-building, as well as developing a vision for the contemporary exhibition program at Telfair Museums.”

Reese holds a master’s degree of fine arts from City College of New York, City University of New York. A Georgia native, she returned to Atlanta in 2012 after working several years in New York City and Philadelphia. She held positions in commercial galleries including Assistant Director of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in Philadelphia; Financial Director of Deitch Projects in New York, along with positions at Petzel Gallery and Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York.

Reese was the former editor of BURNAWAY Magazine in Atlanta, where she edited and published the magazine's inaugural print publication, INTERIOR (2013). Her writing appears in Bomb Magazine Daily, Temporary Art Review, TWELV Magazine, and ART PAPERS, among others. She has taught Critical Issues art courses at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and Georgia State University in Atlanta. In 2009, Reese and her husband founded Possible Projects, a curatorial space, in Brooklyn, and in 2010, Reese founded Possible Press, a free newsprint publication supporting artists writings and distributed internationally. In its five year history, Possible Press has published writings from more than 115 contemporary artists working nationally and internationally. Reese frequently curates independently in Atlanta and beyond, carrying a passion for supporting the artists' voice, small print publications and ephemera, and research-based art practices.

“Rachel has a wide range of expertise,” said Grove. “We look forward to calling on that expertise to grow our vision for modern and contemporary art and making it a reality. Rachel's first major project after coming on board will be to spearhead the presentation of the major exhibition State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now here at the Jepson Center in February of next year.”

An impressive undertaking, State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now captures what is happening in American art today. Over nine months, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art’s curatorial team journeyed to communities small and large to discover artists not yet nationally recognized. The works expose artists’ connections to the past, present, and future of their regional locations, explore a mastery of materiality, and invite a dialogue about America today.

“This new position offers an exciting opportunity to think about the ethical construction of history by museums and the contemporary curator's responsibility in building equitable cultural narratives,” Reese said.  “I anticipate bringing new voices and contexts to Savannah to build audiences and interest around the complex issues addressed by artists working today."