James Crump just arrived in Cincinnati to serve as the Cincinnati Art Museum’s new curator of photography.
His background includes a documentary film on the legendary art collector Sam Wagstaff (Black, White Gray), which premiered last year at the Tribeca Film Festival; articles published in esteemed journals like Art in America, Print and History of Photography; two degrees from Indiana University; and a doctorate from the University of New Mexico.
Crump’s expertise will come to great use as the museum enhances its photography collection with a more interdisciplinary focus.
Q: What’s the coolest thing about you?
Crump: Recognizing that “cool” has no staying power.
Nothing cool ever stays cool. It’s a moment, a breath.
Q: What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on?
Crump: Hard to say. So many. Maybe equally cool were viewing thousands of photographs for a month in a 17th-century hotel particulaire next to Dora Maar’s residence in Paris and editing Carlo Mollino’s surreptitious Polaroid nudes in Casa Mollino, his house in Turin.
Q: Who’s the coolest person you know?
Crump: My friend Charles Churchward, legendary design director for Vogue and Vanity Fair. He’s at ease writing a biography of Herb Ritts while simultaneously planning the interior spaces for his new Richard Meier residence.
GREGORY CREWDSON: BENEATH THE ROSES a collection of five large scale photographers is on view at the Cincinnati Art
Museum through Oct. 5.
PHOTO: PROVIDED CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM
