In 2018, Cortney Lane Stell, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Denver-based arts nonprofit Black Cube, found herself in Zumba classes and piñata-making workshops at a former bracero processing facility at the U.S. border with Mexico; not the typical museum work one would expect, and that’s exactly the point. Black Cube follows artists’ ideas anywhere – from rural Texas to Nevada’s atomic-testing sites – spending months or years in dialogue with communities before a single public artwork takes shape.
The Overview spoke to Stell about what it takes to run a restless institution that reinvents itself with every project and why curiosity matters most in her curatorial practice.
