Meet the curator: julien robson

Julien Robson is an international curator with many years of experience and dedication to the arts. We are excited to have him on board with Artist: Body for the 2016 year. 
 
Julien has 30 years of experience with curating and organizing events. After studying Fine Art at Bath Academy of Art in England, he worked in Britain and Austria before coming to the U.S. He was the curator of Contemporary Art at Louisville’s Speed Art Museum from 2000 to 2008. After this, he went on to be curator of contemporary art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in 2008 and stayed until 2012. He is now an Independent Curator and serves as the director of INhouse Foundation, which is a venue for creative retreats and an organization dedicated to supporting extraordinary creative projects located in Louisville.
 
Julien is very passionate about art persisting as an important part of education. He wrote an article in the Huffington Post in 2013 about working with photographer Richard Ross on a project called “Juvenile in Justice”. This project focuses on youth incarceration. Julien followed Richard’s work and spoke to Rachel Zimmerman, Executive Director of InLiquid, about featuring it in Philadelphia. He wrote, “…we wanted to acknowledge that Philadelphia is a city that is taking a lead in trying to improve the conditions under which youth are detained.”
 
The exhibition is now available in many cities and collaborates with local agencies to provide expungement clinics and more.
 
This show was an important part of Julien’s passion for art to educate. He said, “Rachel and I are on a mission to articulate a serious case for the reinstatement of arts education in our public schools, and to argue against a trend that values standardization at the expense of the individual creative imagination.”
 
Artist: Body focuses on self-portraiture in contemporary art, which goes hand in hand with his passion for the individual creative imagination. For Artist: Body, Julien explored numerous private collections around the world to choose the unique works for this exhibition. His selections will be shown at the Opening Preview Party on February 19th, and the public opening on February 26th. The show will run from February 26th to March 27th.
 
Julien will host Fourth Friday: Curator Conversation on March 25th from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m at the Loudoun House where he will discuss previous works and how he chose the specific pieces for the exhibition.
 
Artist: Body Event Schedule
Opening Preview Party, February 19, 6-10pm, Loudoun House
Fourth Friday Artist: Body Opening, February 26, 6-9pm, Loudoun House
Artist: Body Yoga with Lululemon, March 5, Loudoun House
Drawing Class, March 19, Loudoun House
Fourth Friday: Curator Conversation, March 25, 6-9pm, Loudoun House
 
Gallery Hours
February 27 - March 27
Tuesday - Thursday 10am-4pm
Friday 10am-8pm
Saturday & Sunday 1pm-4pm

Written by Blair Johnson, LAL Intern, University of Kentucky Journalism student

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