CHAD ALLIGOOD
CURATOR
A specialist in American art since 1940, Chad Alligood joined Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as a curator in 2013. Alongside Crystal Bridges’ President Don Bacigalupi, Alligood curated State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now, culminating thousands of miles of cross-country travel and nearly 1,000 in-studio interviews with artists. Attracting a record-breaking attendance of 175,000 visitors, State of the Artrepresented Crystal Bridges’ largest exhibition in both scope and physical scale, including 102 artists from across the country. The exhibition garnered the 2015 Excellence in Exhibition Award from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). The next phase involves traveling the exhibition to other venues around the country.
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Most recently, Alligood curated Warhol’s Nature, which explored the artist’s surprising engagement with nature as subject matter; the exhibition was accompanied by a catalog published by Scala.
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Alligood’s ongoing work at Crystal Bridges focuses on the collection, presentation, and scholarship of modern and contemporary American art. He recently led a major reinstallation of the 1940s to Now gallery, which included new acquisitions and a reimagining of works and movements from the permanent collection.
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Alligood is a Perry, Georgia native who earned his bachelor’s degree in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University, his master’s degree in Art History from the University of Georgia, and has completed his Ph.D. coursework at City University of New York (CUNY).
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His art historical research focuses on the art and artists of Southern California in the 1960s and 70s. He served as Adjunct Professor of Art History at Brooklyn College from 2010 to 2012. Alligood received the Kress Foundation Fellowship at the Smith College Institute for Art Museum Studies, and came to Crystal Bridges from Cranbrook Art Museum where he served as the Graham Collections Fellow.
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At Cranbrook, he curated What to Paint and Why: Modern Painters at Cranbrook, 1936 – 1974. He also served as the managing curator for Alec Soth’s America among other projects. Alligood has lectured widely on the work of living artists and on the foundational importance of empathy in the experience of art.