THE SAN JOSÉ MUSEUM OF ART

(SJMA), founded in 1969 by a group of artists and activists, has long strived to be in touch with the needs of artists and the community. As a leading showcase of modern and contemporary art in the Bay Area, SJMA hosts innovative and compelling exhibitions designed to engage audiences of varying ages and backgrounds. Despite traditional narratives that frame art museums as leisure places for the elite, they aim to serve as community access points into a world that examines contemporary social concepts through the eyes of human experience.

Living in the blank space between the pages of artist and audience, curation facilitates, interprets, and amplifies an artist’s message. Arts serve as the symbolic storytelling of history, while curation brings together concepts and community to inspire different perceptions of the world. SJMA’s three curators, all from diverse cultural backgrounds, collaborate intimately with artists, providing resources and advice that bring ideas to fruition. Curators also work cross-functionally with exhibition, registrar, marketing, education, facilities, and development teams to balance concepts, themes, interpretation, logistics, and use of space.

San José Museum of Art’s mission is to “nurture empathy and connection by engaging communities with socially relevant contemporary art.” SJMA moves into the future with a renewed energy toward public programming, ambitious installations, and plans to leverage their outstanding permanent collection—some of which has never been on view—in idiosyncratic San Jose–based exhibitions designed to develop bonds between audience and art C