A Backward Glance at 2022

2022 was a great year for SGJ Consulting. Here’s a look back at the year that was.

My interview with NBC’s Joelle Gargiulo about An Almanac of New York City for the Year 2023.

I’m deeply grateful to my clients, collaborators, and colleagues for all of your support and for the work we did together. Like last year, I took on a wide range of projects: from Natural History to Black feminism, John F. Kennedy & the Arts, and Jackie Robinson & Civil Rights (an old favorite).

Here’s what I’ll remember most from 2022:

It was thrilling to see visitors reading my exhibition script at the Kennedy Center in Art & Ideals: President John F. Kennedy. Curated by ISG Productions with a beautiful design by Pentagram, the exhibition illuminates the way Kennedy’s appreciation for art, performance, and literature informed his life and his presidency—and shows why the Kennedy Center is his living memorial.

Learn more here.

Read the review in the Washington Post here.

Intro Text

Three paragraphs to introduce Kennedy, suggest how he felt about the arts, and connect him to the Kennedy Center.

Design by Pentagram

Kennedy's Biography

Told through books he loved.

Inaugural Guests

Kennedy invited writers, artists, and cultural leaders to the inauguration—signaling a new engagement with the arts.

Art and Social Change

The exhibition interweaves the issues Kennedy faced—from Civil Rights to the Cold War—with the stories of artists and writers who helped shape his thinking.

Art and The White House

Media Pioneer

Kennedy gave unprecedented access to the media—even letting documentary filmmaker Robert Drew inside the Oval Office during the crisis over the integration of the U. of Alabama.

An Almanac of New York City is back for 2023! This year’s edition features a NYC book and movie for every month (not as easy to come up with as you might think) as well as 52 more quotes and 365(all new) dates.

See my interview with Joelle Garguilo of NBC’s New York Live here.

Read about the Almanac in TimeOut New York here.

And, pick up a copy at your favorite bookstore—like Books are Magic in Brooklyn.

I traveled to many places last year—Savannah, Boston (for AAM), St. Croix, Richmond, Monticello, New Haven, and several times to Washington, DC—visiting as many museums as I could along the way.

Savannah's Plant Hotel

Ok, so not a museum, exactly, but some serious specimen, and an impressive installation.

Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, Savannah

A very realistic model of the Titanic (reminding me of my project Myth & Memory: Titanic at 100 for the South Street Seaport Museum).

Savannah College of Art & Design

SCAD Story (also not exactly a museum) was a reminder of how impactful experiential story-telling can be.

Philip Guston, MFA Boston

In spite of the hype, I found it thoughtful and enlightening.

MFA Boston

MFA Boston

Yum?

Museum of Science, Boston

Hello old friends (rats, it was a display of live rats).

Museum of Science, Boston

I’m guessing Decolonize this Place doesn’t know about this?

Fort Frederik Museum, St. Croix

One of the most unintentionally surreal installations I’ve ever seen.

Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Richmond, VA

A very dense attempt to bring together different strands of Virginia history.

Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Richmond, VA

Grappling with the “Lost Cause” narrative embedded on the museum’s walls.

Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Richmond, VA

All very good questions!

I saw some great, and informative, shows in Washington, DC

Smithsonian

A childhood visit to this space inspired my love of museums.

A Girl's Life, Smithsonian, NMAH

Overheard: Husband: “I don’t want to go in here, I’d rather go to the man part of the museum.” Wife: “the whole museum is the man part of the museum.”

A Girl's Life

Kind of a worst-case scenario for a visitor feedback interactive.

International Spy Museum

Americans, Smithsonian NMAI

Finally got to see this must-see for folks interested in how to tell complicated stories in an engaging way.

Planet Word

Hard to capture how fun this space is.

Presente, Smithsonian NMAH

Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum

Smithsonian NMAAHC

I will admit to being so overwhelmed that my inside pictures are terrible.

And took in a few in New York and New Jersey, too.

Merchant's House Museum, NYC

Duke Riley at the Brooklyn Museum

A favorite artist in a favorite space.

Duke Riley at the Brooklyn Museum

Duke Riley at the Brooklyn Museum

Duke Riley at the Brooklyn Museum

Wolfgang Tillmans at MOMA

Wondering what the registrars thought.

Kimonos at the Met

Jackie Robinson Museum

One of this year’s projects was writing and content development for these “column” interactives.

Chroma at the Met

Afro Futurism at the Met

In America at the Met

Perhaps a little over the top?

In America at the Met

Whitney Biennial

Matisse's Red Room at MOMA

Matisse's Red Room at MOMA

Very un-MOMA-like show.

There and Back at the NJ Veterans Memorial Vietnam Era Museum

Ma Bell at Princeton's Morvan House Museum

NYPL

Faith Ringgold at the New Museum

The Ebony Kitchen at the Africa Center

Sandy Hook's History House

High Water Mark on the South Street Seaport Museum

Memories of Hurricane Sandy.

I’m looking forward to the New Year—and am excited to get to work on some pretty great projects—from an exhibition on neuroscience to the opening of We Who Believe in Freedom: Black Feminist DC for the National Women’s History Museum at the MLK Memorial Library in DC. If you need help with writing, interpretation, project management or problem solving, get in touch! I’d love to hear from you!