The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

Q: Can you share a little bit about the exhibitions you’re organizing this year?

A: In the first half of 2024 I’m really excited to be presenting an Aldrich Project with Amanda Martínez, and the first museum exhibition of Elizabeth Englander’s work. The throughline of artists who are working with materials that are very burdened with memory, and perhaps some anguish too. For Amanda this has meant delving into the memories of her family being adoberos, which entailed a retracing of her own family’s migration away from the Southwest. For Elizabeth this has meant dismembering and dissecting (literally) the consumerism around festive novelty items, like nutcrackers and children’s toys, in order to reject it and tune into a deeper spirituality.

Q: Describe your personal process of partnering with an artist to create an exhibition. What’s one thing you’ve learned from an artist that’s stuck with you?

A: After working with artist, performer, and playwright Bailey Scieszka, I learned to never take anything off the table. I’m not shy around artists. I have a ton of ideas I’m ready to contribute, and most of them get shot down. But I think it’s important to maintain a spirit of experimentation, and a desire to keep the atmosphere of the museum from becoming too stodgy.

Q: What’s interesting to you about working in Ridgefield?

A: I grew up in Miami where there are very few traces of a pre-Columbian past and most of the city is very new. Ridgefield on the other hand feels very overburdened by colonial histories, both tragic and heroic. That is fascinating to me, and I struggle to understand how it can be both preserved so vehemently and opened up to enfranchise more people with different origin stories. On a lighter note, I love taking a roundabout way home to catch a glimpse of a Modernist home on an out of the way residential road.

Q: What’s the most unexpected part of your job?

A: How complex it was to organize Aldrich Undercover! Keeping track of more than 100 works with no labels and gaming out the entire choreography, and keeping patrons on their best behavior….