Alexandra Munroe

Alexandra Munroe is a curator and historian of modern and contemporary art from Asia as well as a scholar of world art studies and transnational art history.

Munroe organized the first retrospectives in America of several Asian-born artists, including Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Cai Guo-Qiang, and Lee Ufan. Munroe's survey exhibition Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky (1994–95) initiated the academic and curatorial field of postwar Japanese art history in the United States.

In 2006, Munroe was appointed the Senior Curator of Asian Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. It was the first curatorial post of its kind in an international art museum devoted to modern and contemporary art.

Education and travels

Munroe was born in New York City and raised in Mexico and Japan. She attended Brown University for two years and later received a bachelor of arts in Japanese Language and Culture from Sophia University (上智大学) in Tokyo in 1982. She was awarded a master's degree in art history from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and in 2004, a Ph.D. in history from New York University. She studied under Harry Harootunian and wrote her thesis on postwar Japanese art and politics.

Prior to her academic training, Munroe served as a resident lay disciple at Yotokuin, a subtemple of Daitokuji (大徳寺) monastic compound in Kyoto, a historic center of Rinzai Zen from 1977 to 1980. She practiced chanoyu with masters of the Urasenke (裏千家) school of tea and shimai with a master in the Hōshō (宝生) school of Noh theater. Munroe is fluent in Japanese.

Curatorial work and scholarship

Munroe's survey exhibition Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky (1994–95) initiated the academic and curatorial field of postwar Japanese art history in the United States. Munroe organized the first retrospectives in America of several Asian-born artists, including Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective (Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York, 1989); YES Yoko Ono (Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2000; traveled to 13 venues in U.S., Canada, Japan, and Korea through 2003); Cai Guo Qiang: I Want to Believe (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2008); and Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2011).The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989 (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2009) was among the largest exhibitions of Asian influence on American culture to date and received the inaugural Chairman’s Special Award of $1,000,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Museum career

As Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Munroe spearheads the museum’s Asian Art Initiative, expanding the institution’s mission to study, acquire, and exhibit art from beyond the Western world. In this role, she guides the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s exhibitions, acquisitions, and public programs relating to Asian art for its museums worldwide. As a member of the Curatorial Working Group for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, she helps shape the future museum’s collection. Munroe has also organized and maintains the Asian Art Council, an advisory group composed of global art curators.

Under Munroe's direction, the Guggenheim launched The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative in 2013 with a $10 million grant to study, present, and acquire contemporary art from China.

Prior to the Guggenheim, Munroe was an independent curator based in New York and Tokyo before, in 1998, becoming Director of Japan Society Gallery, and later, Vice President of Arts and Culture at Japan Society, an American organization dedicated to cultural and policy exchange between Japan and the United States. During her seven-year tenure, the society’s contemporary art programs grew in size and stature through such exhibitions as YES Yoko Ono (2000) and the Takashi Murakami–curated Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subcultures (2005). Both shows set record attendance for the institution. Munroe also curated the society’s first inter-Asia loan exhibition, Transmitting the Forms of Divinity: Early Buddhist Art from Korea and Japan (2003) that was co-organized by the Japan Society; Korea Society, New York; Gyeongju National Museum, Korea; and Nara National Museum, Japan.

Awards and honors

Munroe's exhibitions and publications have been recognized by numerous awards. The International Association of Art Critics (AICA-USA) has cited four of her exhibitions: YES YOKO ONO (First Prize, Best Museum Show Originating in New York, 2001), Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture, shared with Takashi Murakami (First Prize, Best Thematic Museum Show in New York, 2006), Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989 (First Prize, Best Thematic Museum Show in New York, 2010), and Gutai: Splendid Playground (shared with Ming Tiampo, First Prize, Best Thematic Museum Show in New York, 2014).

In 2012, the American Alliance of Museums conferred an Honorable Mention in the Publications Competition on Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity. Likewise, in 2009, the Association of American Museum Curators awarded The Third Mind: American Artists Contemporary Asia, 1860–1989 an Honorable Mention for Outstanding Exhibition Catalogue.

In 2009, the catalogue for Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe took First Place for 30th George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award, presented by the Art Libraries Society of North America, and in 2008–09, China Art Powers named the exhibition the Best Show in China. In 1996, the catalogue Japanese Art after 1945: Scream Against the Sky was a finalist for the Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Outstanding Scholarship in a Publication, awarded by the College Art Association.

In addition, Munroe has been a member of Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) since 2001 and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations

Philanthropy and activism

In April 2011, Munroe organized the Guggenheim’s petition among museums worldwide in support of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei and his release from state custody. Supported by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the American Association of Museum Directors (AAMD), and the PEN American Center, the petition garnered over 145,000 signatures in the United States and abroad at change.org.

Munroe is a member of the advisory boards of Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; LEAP, Beijing; Jnanapravaha Mumbai; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. She also serves as a trustee of the Aspen Music Festival and School; Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; and the US-Japan Foundation.

Munroe is a trustee of The Rosenkranz Foundation, dedicated to innovation in public policy, higher education, and the arts. In 2006, she and her husband Robert Rosenkranz cofounded Intelligence Squared U.S., a public-policy debate forum. Her philanthropy also includes the AKM Fund at New York Community Trust, which sponsors end-of-life and palliative care training at Yale University School of Medicine and Harvard University’s Massachusetts General Hospital.

External links

• Guggenheim Museum Curator Profile
• Complete List of Munroe's Works
• Alexandra Munroe Website
• Rosenkranz Foundation Director Biography
• Intelligence Squared U.S. Co-Founder