The Brooklyn Museum announced, on April 2, two new appointments to the Curatorial Affairs team. Ernestine White-Mifetu has been appointed Sills Foundation Curator of African Art, and Abigail L. Dansiger has been appointed Director of Libraries and Archives. Both started at the Museum on March 1, 2022.
In her role as Sills Foundation Curator of African Art, Ernestine White-Mifetu will be instrumental in developing permanent galleries dedicated to the Museum’s Arts of Africa collection. The Brooklyn Museum has one of the largest collections of African art in the United States, with over 6,000 works spanning 2,500 years and representing more than one hundred cultures. As the Museum moves from fundraising for the new galleries into the next phase of architectural planning, Ernestine White-Mifetu, it’s explained, will lead the reinstallation with a focus on expanding the canon through new interpretations. She will also spearhead initiatives to activate the collection and augment traveling shows with key works while the galleries are being completed.
With twenty years of experience working with contemporary visual and performance art of the African continent and its diaspora, the Brooklyn Museum said, Ernestine White-Mifetu will bring the Brooklyn Museum’s extensive collection of African art to life by telling new stories and building connections for today’s audiences and the local Brooklyn community. Enernestine White-Mifetu said: “I am deeply appreciative of the opportunity to showcase the vast and varied ways in which African creatives have, through time, expressed their personal, local, and global lived realities. The Arts of Africa collection, ranging from the historical to the contemporary, will serve as a vital springboard to generate meaningful conversations amongst visitors of all generations and cultures.”
A leading figure in the South African cultural sector
Ernestine White-Mifetu joins the Brooklyn Museum after serving as the director of the William Humphreys Art Gallery (2019-2020), one of South Africa’s three national art museums, where she oversaw strategic management and operations. In her capacity as the institution’s chief curator, she was also responsible for developing curatorial and public engagement programs that ensured equitable representation of artists from a broad range of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Previously, she served as the curator of contemporary paintings and sculpture at the Iziko South African National Gallery (2014-2019), and as the deputy chairperson of the Artistic Committee for South Africa’s National Arts Festival (NAF). During her tenure as the curator of visual and performance art for NAF, Ernestine White-Mifetu created programs and exhibitions that focused on the transformative power of the arts and public engagement among diverse audiences.
Ernestine White-Mifetu currently serves as a board member of the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM). She holds a Bachelor degree in Fine Art (1999) cum laude from the State University of Purchase College in New York; a Master Printer degree in Fine Art Lithography (2001) from the Tamarind Institute in New Mexico; a Master degree in Fine Art (2004) from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town, and an Honours degree in Curatorship (2013) from the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art.
