UNL taps Veneciano as new Sheldon director

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By L. KENT WOLGAMOTT / GZO

Jorge Daniel Veneciano, director of the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University, is the new director of the Sheldon Museum of Art.

Veneciano will officially become director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s art museum on July 1, Chancellor Harvey Perlman announced Tuesday.

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Veneciano

Veneciano

In a telephone interview from his New York home, Veneciano said he is excited to come to Lincoln.

“The museum itself, the Philip Johnson museum, is an absolute gem that is impressive on so many levels,” Veneciano said. “It’s a dream place to work. There are a number of possibilities with the Sheldon that are exciting. It is at a particular moment of transition. It’s perfect for a person like me to bring in ideas of what an American art collection, a museum devoted to American art, can be.”

 Veneciano has been director of the Robeson Galleries at the Rutgers campus in Newark, N.J., for three years. He has 10 years’ experience in arts administration and fundraising, including five years as exhibitions curator at The Studio Museum in Harlem in the 1990s.

Before moving to New York in 1994, he directed three community arts centers for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. He has taught at Rhode Island School of Design and Columbia University.

“Daniel Veneciano brings a solid background in arts administration and in developing community arts centers, and I am confident in the perspective he brings to leading the Sheldon,” Perlman said in a news release. “I am excited about his enthusiasm for developing outreach programs and look forward to his leadership role in the development of Lincoln’s Arts and Humanities Corridor, with space for more of the Sheldon collection to be enjoyed by more people.”

Veneciano said the possibility of developing the Nebraska Press warehouse in the Haymarket District into a Sheldon extension is a large part of why he applied to become the museum’s director.

“Part of the creativity for a director, as I see it, is helping to bring a vision for that space,” he said. “There is great potential with the warehouse building. I compare it to the DIA in Chelsea. It was really the DIA that became an anchor for that area becoming an art center. The Sheldon extension can be that anchor for the Haymarket District.”

Veneciano has a doctoral degree in English and comparative literature from Columbia University and a master of fine arts degree from the California Institute of Arts in Valencia. He also holds a master of art and art history from California State University, Los Angeles, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Much of his academic work has been in American studies, he said. That will allow him to bring a new, different vision of American art and American culture to Sheldon, which collects and primarily exhibits American art. As a curator, Veneciano’s speciality is contemporary American art. He is particularly interested in 20th century American art, the strength of the Sheldon collection.

At Robeson, Veneciano said he has been able to bring other parts of the university into partnership with the galleries, including scholars and graduate students, and raise funds and organize for exhibitions and scholarly catalogs. He said he also hopes to establish a number of partnerships between Sheldon and other university museums.

Veneciano succeeds Janice Driesbach, who resigned in September. He will be the museum’s fourth director since the Philip Johnson-designed building opened in 1963. Previous directors were Norman Geske and George Neubert.

While he is already preparing for some of what he wants to do in Lincoln, Veneciano will not officially take over at Sheldon for two months.

“I have a commitment to the gallery I’m in and I want to make sure that everything runs smoothly after I leave,” he said. “I just cannot leave abruptly.”

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.