Apr

Acting Director named for African Art Museum

Christine Creamer will serve as Acting Director of the National Museum of African Art until a new director is appointed.

Christine M. Kreamer

Christine Mullen Kreamer, deputy director and chief curator of the National Museum of African Art, will serve as Acting Director of the museum until a new director is appointed to replace Johnnetta Cole, who retired from the Smithsonian March 31. Kreamer previously served as Acting Director of the museum from January 2009 through March 2009.

Kreamer joined the Smithsonian family as content coordinator of the “African Voices” exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History and became a curator at the National Museum of African Art in April 2000. Since then, she has curated several exhibitions, including “African Cosmos: Stellar Arts,” “Lines, Marks, and Drawings: Through the Lens of Roger Ballen,” “Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Art,” “African Vision: The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection,” and “Conversations: African and African American Artwork in Dialogue.”

Kreamer is a well-known scholar and author of several books and catalogs, including African Cosmos, African Vision, and Inscribing Meaning. She co-edited the often cited Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Kreamer earned her doctorate from Indiana University in 1986, specializing in African art history, knowledge systems, and museum anthropology. In addition to research in Togo and South Africa, she has worked on museum exhibitions and training projects in Ghana and Vietnam.