View the private collection of American independent curator and collector Marcelle Joseph at her home. Joseph is a passionate supporter of emerging and marginalised artists who are striving to make their mark in our white, male dominated art world.
Marcelle Joseph has had a long love affair with ceramics and textiles in contemporary art. Even before the current infatuation with this blended art form, Joseph has been collecting artists such as Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling, Turner Prize nominee Sin Wai Kin, Zadie Xa, Lindsay Mendick, France-Lise McGurn and Helen Chadwick. Maybe it was the influence of her great aunt who was the director of one of the top craft colleges in the US, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee. Maybe it was her fascination with art that embodies the female experience. Either way, it’s her passion for supporting emerging and marginalised artists that defines her art collection.
“My curatorial work focuses on gender and the performative construction of identity, and thus my collection follows along the same lines of enquiry,’ explains Joseph.
In 2011, Joseph founded Marcelle Joseph Projects, a nomadic curatorial platform that has produced over 50 exhibitions in the UK and the rest of Europe, featuring the work of over 350 international artists.
Joseph is the executive editor of Korean Art: The Power of Now (Thames & Hudson, 2013). Additionally, in London, Joseph is the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Mimosa House (since 2021), an Ambassador of the Royal Academy Schools (since 2010), a member of the Advisory Council of the Eye of the Collector, an alternative art fair (since 2024), and a member of the Selection Panel of PLOP Residency (since 2019).
She served as a trustee of Matt's Gallery in London from 2018-2022 and served on the jury of the 2017-2019 Max Mara Art Prize for Women, in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery and Collezione Maramotti, and the Mother Art Prize 2018.
She also collects artworks by female-identifying artists under the collecting partnership, GIRLPOWER Collection, as well as more generally as part of the Marcelle Joseph Collection.
Since 2022, her collection has been on public display in the UK in two institutional exhibitions co-curated by Joseph, the first at the Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, Rugby (2022) and the second at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds, Leeds (2023-24). In 2022, Joseph also co-curated her first museum exhibition in the United States at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles titled ‘The Condition of Being Addressable’. In 2023, she co-founded the GIRLPOWER Residency in southwestern France, an annual artist residency for female-identifying and non-binary artists.
Her next exhibition will feature the works of three artists from the GIRLPOWER Residency 2024: Melania Toma, Paula Turmina and Atalanta Xanthe. Ione & Mann will host this exhibition at their space in Mayfair in February/March 2025.
She will take us through her extensive collection and give advice on collecting art.