Professional BIO

Kathleen E. Ash-Milby, Navajo, is a curator of contemporary Native American art. She is currently the curator and co-director of the American Indian Community House (AICH) Gallery in New York City and also works on independent projects with various institutions. She earned her Master of Arts from the University of New Mexico in Native American art history in 1994 and joined the curatorial department of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution in 1993 where she worked until 1999. She assisted with acquisitions and exhibition development at the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in Corning, New York and was a New York State Council on the Arts panelist. Ash-Milby is the Vice President of the Native American Art Studies Association (NAASA) and has served on the board since 1997.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

"Finding Our Way: Negotiating Community in Contemporary Native Art." In Making a Noise. Banff, Alberta: Banff International Curatorial Institute, Walter Phillips Gallery, in press.

"Still in the Shadows: Native American Art in the 21st Century." In Transcultural New Jersey: Diverse Artists Shaping Culture and Communities. New Brunswick: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2004.

"The Indian as 'Artist': Native American Art at the Rockwell Museum of Western Art." In People, Places and Ideas: The Rockwell Museum of Western Art. Corning, NY: Rockwell Museum of Western Art, 2001.

"Bonita Wa Wa Calachaw Nunez: an Indian Princess Painter." In Painters, Patrons and Identity: Essays in Honor of J. J. Brody and the University of New Mexico, Joyce M. Szabo, ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.

"Lorenzo Clayton." In Contemporary Masters, The Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, Vol. I, Indianapolis: Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 1999.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:

MESSENGER: J. Houston-Emerson, AICH, 2004.

AlieNation: Mario Martinez and Greg A. Hill, AICH, 2002.

Downtown Dine: Navajo Artists in New York City, AICH, 2002.

Guest Curator, Present Tense: Native American Self-Representation in Photography, Foster Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, 2000.

Assistant Curator, First American Art: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection of Native American Art, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 2004.