Head over to Soundcloud (or any of our other hosting services via the buttons above) to hear our latest episode with Adela Goldsmith about queer elders, our love/hate relationship with museums (some we really love), the value of experiential knowledge, the importance and innate queerness of archives, the future of museums (is there one?), the roles of care networks, mutual aid, and queer methodologies during this historic moment, what the Critical Bounds drinking game would look like, and "What is a Career?".

Adela Goldsmith is an independent art scholar and curator, who graduated from Smith College with a BA in Art History and a concentration in Museum Studies, wherein they completed a project which examines the relationship between the development of museums’ permanent collections and archival documentation.

They have held curatorial internships at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as an archives internship in artist Cass Bird’s studio, and was a Junior Assistant at the Center for Curatorial Leadership.

Currently, Goldsmith has joined forces with the think-tank/research lab known as the Institute of Museums Against All Fucked Up Social Systems (IMAAFUSS), which explores adaptive solutions for experiencing art collectively and critiquing arts institutions in the midst of a catastrophic pandemic and a watershed reckoning with racism and inequity in the cultural sector and beyond. They have also gotten involved with the soon-to-debut mutual aid and resource-sharing network, Aid for Art Now (A4AN), which aims to support and sustain current and prospective arts workers and create a more inclusive and accessible museum field.

Their curatorial practice focuses on the intersections of queerness, archival
impulse, and institutional memory.

Hi everyone, my name is Tori Currier and I am excited to intern at Critical Bounds this summer. I am a first-generation college student who transferred to Smith College last fall. I am an Art History major with a focus on LGBTQ+ art, but my studies began at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

HCC offers a program called “Learning Communities.” Learning Communities give students from many walks of life the opportunity to take courses at local 4-year universities, like Smith College. During my time at HCC, I was fortunate enough to take a Learning Community that met at Smith. The course was about “the New York School,” a group of experimental visual artists, writers, musicians, and dancers in 1950’s and 1960’s New York. In these courses alongside Smith students, I discovered my capability and passion for art history. I am particularly passionate about the art of artists who have been traditionally marginalized, like those from the LGBTQ+ community, and women artists of the New York School. (One of Elaine de Kooning’s self-portraits is framed on my bedroom wall.)

At Smith, I have become especially focused on the art of the AIDS crisis. I am using my practice to spotlight the influence of AIDS crisis art on art today and challenge the societal assumption that HIV/AIDS is a virus of the past instead of an ongoing epidemic.

Under ‘read more’ you can find some of the artists and works that inform my practice.

As a creative writer working toward a career in higher education, I am also passionate about alternative modes of education, like historical fiction. Presently, I am developing a television screenplay about LGBTQ+ artists during the 1960’s - 1980’s, hoping to educate younger generations about the community’s history and the social roles that art has played.

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