In this week’s episode of Curious Objects, Benjamin Miller speaks with Emelie Gevalt, curatorial chair for collections and curator of folk art at the American Folk Art Museum in New York. On view starting September 13 at the museum is the exhibition Playing with Design: Gameboards, Art, and Culture, an exhibition co-curated by Gevalt, and she has brought along one special example to discuss: a nineteenth century painted-wood Game of the Goose board.
Emelie Gevalt is curatorial chair for collections and curator of folk art at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. Her exhibitions at AFAM include the critically acclaimed What that Quilt Knows About Me (2023) and Unnamed Figures: Black Presence and Absence in the Early American North (2023). Gevalt received her BA in art history and theater studies from Yale University, her MA from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and her PhD in art history from the University of Delaware. Her two decades of art-world experience include positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Christie’s, New York, where she was a Vice President in the Estates, Appraisals, and Valuations department.
