Winter Speaker Series: Christie Mitchell

Christie Mitchell, Senior Curatorial Assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Few American artists are as ever-present and instantly recognizable as Andy Warhol (1928–1987). Through his carefully cultivated persona and willingness to experiment with non-traditional art-making techniques, Warhol understood the growing power of images in contemporary life and helped to expand the role of the artist in society. Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again at the Whitney Museum of American Art was the first Warhol retrospective organized by a U.S. institution since 1989, and reconsidered the work of one of the most inventive, influential, and important American artists. Built on a wealth of new materials, research and scholarship that had emerged since the artist’s untimely death in 1987, the exhibition revealed new complexities about the Warhol we think we know, and introduced a Warhol for the 21st century.

Each lecture will be followed by audience Q&A and continued conversation in the galleries over hot tea, coffee, and scrumptious light fare and desserts.

Christie Mitchell is a Senior Curatorial Assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is currently organizing fruits, vegetables; fruit and vegetable salad, a full-floor collection display for the Whitney on view January-February 2020, and assisting on Around Day’s End: Downtown New York, 1970-1986, to open at the Whitney in summer 2020. Previously Mitchell was a member of the curatorial team for the retrospective Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again, which debuted at the Whitney before traveling to the San Francisco Museum Art Institute of Chicago in 2018-2020. Other recent projects include organizing Do Ho Suh: 95 Horatio Street and assisting on Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium, Open Plan: Steve McQueen, and Open Plan: Michael Heizer.

Prior to moving to New York, Mitchell was a Research Assistant for Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface, at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, a part of the Getty initiative “Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980”. She has served as a juror for the WestBeth Artists Council, the Greenwich Art Society, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Mitchell earned an M.A. from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, where she focused on modern and contemporary art, and was an invited speaker at the conference “Duke House: A Case Study in Architecture, Decoration, and Art History.” She is a recipient of the 2013 NYU-IFA Decorative Arts Prize, and holds a B.A. in Art History with a minor in French from Duke University.

Johanna and Ronald Becker
Mary Jennings
Cynthia Sinclair
Kathleen Shinners
The Hope Foundation