Just Above Midtown Curator Dies at 83

Kathleen Goncharov, a curator whose work included organizing exhibitions for Just Below Midtown Gallery, died of natural causes on December 31 at her home in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 73 years old.

Goncharoff served as senior curator at the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Florida from 2012 until his retirement in 2025. Previously, she worked as a curator at institutions across the United States, curating exhibitions from Rio de Janeiro to Bologna and Rome, and served as commissioner for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2003, in the form of Fred Wilson’s exhibition Talking About Me, which addressed the historical and contemporary role of black people in the U.S. Pavilion in Venice.

“I worked closely with Kathleen Goncharov during my 11 years at the Boca Raton Museum of Art,” said Irvin Lippman, executive director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art from 2014 to 2025. It was a pleasure to work with her. She has a wonderful curatorial eye, which underscores my favorite comment about our art installations—that our museum has a soul, thanks to Kathy’s talent as a curator. “She has curated over 30 exhibitions at the museum with an unparalleled and unique style, including those of Tony Oursler, Whitfield Lovell, Phyllis Galembo, and Maren Hassinger. Hassinger), Jose Alvarez (DOPA), Charles McGill and Trine Lise Nedreaas, among others.

Born in Monroe, Michigan, in 1952, Goncharoff began her career in New York in 1980 as curator at Linda Goode Bryant’s downtown gallery (JAM), where she organized performances and exhibitions. From 1983 to 1986, she served as exhibition director for Creative Time, a New York public art presenter.

She continued as art curator at the New School in New York City from 1987 to 2001, building extensive collections and organizing public programs at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. During this period, she also organized Wilson’s lecture “Re: Claiming Egypt” at the 4th Cairo International Biennale in 1992, and curated a lecture at the 7th Triennial in New Delhi, India, in 1991. From 2001 to 2003, she served as curator of public art at MIT, overseeing the school’s Percent for Art program and organizing the Venice exhibition.

From 2003 to 2005, she served as Adjunct Curator of Contemporary Art at the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, and from 2007 to 2011, she served as Executive Director of the Brodsky Center for Innovation at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Among the many artists she has supported throughout her long career are El Anatsui, Lynda Benglis, Petah Coyne, Grand Master Flash, Chitra Ganesh, David Hammons, Mona Hatoum, Barkley Hendricks, Isaac Julien, William Kentridge, Hew Locke, Thomas Nozkowski, Lorraine O’Grady, Tony Oursler, Martin Puryear, Duke Riley, Pat Steir, Mickalene Thomas and Carrie Mae Weems.

Goncharov also worked behind the scenes as an artist for about 40 years. Her first exhibition, “Up and Down,” will be on view at Olympia Gallery in New York in 2022. “Goncharov points to the eccentric forms and colors of artists such as Giotto, Duccio, Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesco, Masaccio, and especially of Sienese painters such as Giovanni di Paolo, Sassetta, the Master of Osservanza, Sanno di Pietro – who approached religious subjectivity in art. Their own unique fashion – as her central inspiration,” the gallery wrote in press materials.

Goncharoff is survived by her long-time partner, the poet Charles Doria, her sister Janet Sterling and her sister’s husband Joseph Sterling, and nieces Ann Goff, Amy Sterling and Emily Sterling and their families; as well as her brother Earl Shew, his wife Sharon Shew and nephew Stephen Shew and their families.