Laurie Ann Farrell is a globally-recognized curator, art historian and writer. Farrell has written extensively on contemporary African art and culture, including exhibition catalogues, journal articles as well as artist monographs. Her work has been profiled and featured in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, African Arts, Vogue, CNN, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, ArtNews, Flash Art, and Artforum, among many others.
In 2020, during the height of COVID, Farrell organized the largest cultural consortium the DFW metroplex has ever seen. She brought together seven major DFW museums and more than sixty community partners, including the City of Dallas, for artist Carrie Mae Weems’ RESIST COVID/ TAKE 6! public-facing art campaign to curb the spread of COVID-19 and distribute more than 12,000 reusable face masks to communities in need.
As the head of modern and contemporary art and curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Farrell oversaw one of our country’s most important postwar art and modern art collections, including the GM Center for African American Art. In December 2018 she curated Ruben & Isabel Toledo: Labor of Love featuring new works made in response to the DIA collections and Diego Rivera Detroit Industry Murals and encyclopedic art collection.
From 2007 to 2016, Farrell was Executive Director for the Savannah College of Art and Design’s two museums and exhibition programming for all of their locations in Savannah and Atlanta, GA; Lacoste, France; and Hong Kong.
She started her career in 1999 at the Museum for African Art in New York where she was the first curator of contemporary art. Highlight exhibitions include the group exhibitions Personal Affects: Power and Poetics in Contemporary South African Art (2004) and Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora (2003). In 2006, she organized the American participation at the inaugural Trienal de Luanda with support and funding provided by the U.S. Department of State.
Farrell received the Abraaj Capital Art Prize with artist Kader Attia in 2010, ArtTable New Leadership award in 2011, and Southeast Museum Conference 2015 Museum Leadership Award.