Barnes Foundation Taps Connie H. Choi for Expanded Curatorial and Education Role
The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia has appointed Connie H. Choi as its new chief curator and vice president for art and education, a newly created post that broadens the museum’s leadership structure. Choi, who will begin on September 8, succeeds Nancy Ireson and arrives from the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she has spent nearly a decade shaping exhibitions, scholarship, and public-facing programs.
At the Studio Museum, Choi worked closely with director and chief curator Thelma Golden on the institution’s curatorial vision, including the reopening last fall. She also served as lead curator for “From Now: A Collection in Context,” the museum’s collection hang for the new building, and organized a survey of Tom Lloyd. Her work on Lloyd drew notice for its scholarly rigor and for the difficulty of locating some of the artist’s sculptures, several of which remain missing.
Choi’s Studio Museum credits also include “Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem” (2019–21), “Their Own Harlems” (2017–18), “Fictions” (2017–18), “Regarding the Figure” (2017), and “Infinite Blue” (2017). Beyond exhibitions, she collaborated with the museum’s Learning and Engagement department on Find Art Here, an initiative that placed reproductions of Studio Museum-owned works throughout Harlem.
Her scholarship has been recognized with a Henry Allen Moe Prize for the catalog accompanying “Black Refractions,” and she received a Center for Curatorial Research Fellowship in 2022. Choi has also taught art history at Barnard College, Columbia University, and New York University, underscoring the educational dimension that now sits at the center of her new role.
At the Barnes, Choi will oversee curatorial, collections, conservation, registration, exhibitions, research, interpretation, adult learning, and academic programs. She will also continue to curate exhibitions and publish research. In a statement, Barnes executive director and president Thom Collins said he merged those departments under her leadership to strengthen ties among curatorial, conservation, research, interpretation, and adult education functions.
For the Barnes, the appointment signals a deliberate alignment of scholarship and pedagogy at a moment when museums are rethinking how collections are interpreted and shared. For Choi, it marks a move from one institution deeply invested in public education to another whose identity has long been shaped by the same conviction.
