Cultural Practice as an Act of Citizenship: 

Democracy Needs Us!

Evening Presentation by Dr. Dorothy Kosinski

Thursday, October 17th | 6:45pm

Generously supported by The Marilyn Lichtman Distinguished Speaker Series

Dorothy Kosinski, photo by Daniel Schwartz

This event is at capacity. To join the waitlist, please email communications@kreegermuseum.org.

Cultural Practice as an Act of Citizenship. Democracy Needs Us!

Though not an exhortation to political activism, this essay is a call to the museum practitioner, the humanist, and the educator to boldly reimagine the impact of our work and realize that our enterprise has higher stakes in the human arena than typically imagined. Value the moral life of the art object and seek to hear the voices of the artists and craft ways to elucidate that dimension. Ours is not the language of corporate business and politics, but rather the language of the artist, the moral philosopher, the ethicist, and the botanist. Rigid metrics of purity, time and progress are replaced with the fecund qualities of the organic world -- diversity, complexity, transformation, and resilience. In 2009 the artist Krzysztof Wodiczko stated: “One makes democracy. We must develop the capacity for communication and for fearless listening”. Fearless listening depends on our intellectual and ethical humility, an openness to new paradigms and new stories.

This presentation results from Kosinski’s 2024 residency at the Getty Museum

Dr. Kosinski is the Director Emerita of The Phillips Collection, having served as Vradenburg Director and CEO from 2008 to 2023. During her tenure she launched several innovative, externally facing collaborations including a multi-year multi-disciplinary partnership with the University of Maryland and a permanent satellite in Southeast DC at the Town Hall Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC). Dr. Kosinski diversified and expanded the museum’s collection and programming, notably acquiring photography and contemporary art, establishing paid internships and fellowships, and hiring the museum’s first Chief Diversity Officer.

In 2013 Kosinski was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Council on the Humanities. In 2017 she was recognized by the Ambassador of Italy with the Order of the Italian Start, a distinction recognizing her outstanding contributions to the arts and promotion of Italian culture. In 2022 she was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. She currently serves on the boards of several foundations and has recently been named to the Board of Governors of Folger Shakespeare Library.

Prior to her directorship Kosinski distinguished herself as an art historian and curator. From 1995 to 20008 she served as Barbara Thomas Lemmon Curator of European Art and Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Dallas Museum of Art. From 1985 to 1997, while living in Basel, Switzerland she was the curator of the Douglas Cooper Collection of cubist art. She also served as an independent curator of major exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts, London; The Kunstmuseum Basel; The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; and The National Gallery in Prague. Dr. Kosinski received a BA from Yale University and an MA and PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.

The Marilyn Lichtman Distinguished Speaker Series brings leaders in art communities and institutions across the United States to The Kreeger Museum to engage with audiences on a multitude of issues relating to art and contemporary culture.