LaGamma, Alisa

Alisa LaGamma, Curator, Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Alisa LaGamma is Curator in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among the exhibitions and publications she has been responsible for there are: The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End (October 2008-March 2009), Eternal Ancestors: Art of the Central African Reliquary (October 2007-March 2008), Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture (February 2004), Genesis: Ideas of Origins in African Sculpture (November 2002-April 2003), Art and Oracle: Spirit Voices of Africa (April 2000), and Master Hand: Individuality and Creativity Among Yoruba Sculptors" (September 1997-February 1998).

A 1988 graduate of the University of Virginia, Alisa LaGamma received her M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University. Her 1995 dissertation: "The Art of the Punu Mukudj Masquerade: Portrait of an Equatorial Society" was based on a year of fieldwork in southern Gabon. Born in the Congo, Dr. LaGamma has traveled widely in sub-Saharan Africa and lived in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Nigeria, Togo, and South Africa. She has taught as a visiting professor in the art history departments at Columbia University, Rutgers, the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University’s Institute of Fine of Fine Arts and is a member of the editorial board of the journal African Arts. A member of American Association of Museum Curators, she is currently serving as Chair of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Forum of Curators, Conservators, and Scientists. (http://www.curatorialleadership.org/fellowspage2010.html, 2014-08-29)