Collection in Focus: Peter Hujar
Dive deep into the archive of the iconic photographer Peter Hujar with Olivia McCall, Edith Gowin Curatorial Fellow of Photography at The Morgan Library & Museum.
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OLIVIA MCCALL (she/her) is an art historian and curator furthering scholarship on artists bearing witness to the AIDS epidemic and queer experience from the late 1970s through the 1990s, with a specific emphasis on photography, film, affect studies, and queer theory. In July 2022, she completed her MA in the History of Art, awarded with High Distinction by The Courtauld Institute of Art in London. The focus of her degree was a course titled "Drop Dead" New York: Art, Film, and Activism Downtown, 1971-1992, taught by Dr. Tom Day. Her dissertation, titled "Transcending and Queering the Album: Nan Goldin and the Affective Archive as 'Home'" was awarded the Director's Letter of Congratulations for excellent performance in the 2021-22 MA History of Art Dissertation.
Olivia was a Helena Rubinstein Critical Studies fellow in the 2023-24 cohort of the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program (ISP), under the new direction of Gregg Bordowitz. Her presentation at the Critical Studies Symposium, titled "Interminable: The Affective Labor of Caretaking in/of Archives of AIDS Activism," was mentored by Ann Cvetkovich.
From 2022-2024, Olivia was the Edith Gowin Curatorial Fellow in the Department of Photography at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York, where her central focus was working on a forthcoming exhibition and publication of Peter Hujar's contact sheets.
EDUCATION
Ph.D. History of Art, Bryn Mawr College (beginning Fall 2024)
Whitney Independent Study Program, Critical Studies (2023-24)
M.A. History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2022)
B.A. Art History & English, Barnard College of Columbia University (2019)
RECENT WORK
