As one of the museum’s exhibition project managers, she’s responsible for ensuring that the many, many components of an installation are ready in time for opening day. Kylie loves a good spreadsheet, and she truly thrives when leading her colleagues through a project. I’ve had the great joy of working with her on a number of projects and staff initiatives over the years, and I’m eager for you to get to know her and learn how she keeps everything on track.
Amanda: I’m excited to talk with you today, Kylie! I was so touched when you asked me to join you for this conversation because I adore working with you and admire you so much.
Kylie: Oh, Amanda, I love talking with you about all things. You’re one of the kindest and most competent people at the museum.
Amanda: It’s mutual—the feeling is mutual. I have many questions to ask you, and obviously we can keep it informal, but I do have them grouped by category so that we can stay organized and on track.
Kylie: That’s very “project manager” of you, actually.
Amanda: Well, I’ve learned from the best, of course. And that’s a good place to start—with your current role. Kylie, what does an exhibition project manager do here?
Kylie Escudero and Amanda Block chat in the museum’s Pritzker Garden
Kylie: What doesn’t one do? After a curator has their next great idea for an exhibition—and the proposal is green-lit by senior leadership—it’s assigned to a project manager like me to see through to completion. The project manager facilitates the administrative work behind the exhibition, helps steward the museum’s resources, and oversees the production schedule for the show. There are several of us in Exhibitions, each handling several different shows at one time. Some we begin working on four or five years in advance.
Amanda: Right! I think that might surprise some people. Is 2024 even the primary focus in your office right now?
Kylie: We’re very much working on 2024 projects, but we’re also looking as far ahead as 2029. It takes a monumental effort to coordinate an exhibition. Often we’ll have artworks coming to us from all over the world—from private collections or other museums. Each loan has to be negotiated, a space must be designed and constructed for the show, and finances need to be managed. And if we happen to be co-organizing the exhibition with another institution, then there’s a whole other layer of contract work involved.
It’s not like I work on all of these things directly, but I help organize everyone’s efforts so that when we get to the day of installation, everything is ready to go.
Amanda: And what does your day-to-day look like as a project manager? I would imagine that it can vary quite a bit, especially when you’re planning an exhibition while installing another.
Kylie: Yes, my day can involve anything from reviewing finances to leading design meetings to actually being in the galleries, where I help coordinate the installation of artwork, lighting, and graphics. It’s a bunch of unique yet important tasks.
Amanda: And they culminate in one final, beautiful exhibition.
Kylie: Exactly.
Amanda: Which of our upcoming exhibitions are you working on now?
Kylie: I’m gearing up for an exhibition of works by the 20th-century German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker that will open in October. As you and I are speaking, it’s already open at the Neue Galerie in New York. We’ve been working with them closely over the last few years to bring the artist’s works from Germany, where she’s quite widely known, to the United States. She was truly ahead of her time. She created a fair number of self-portraits—including nudes, when female nude self-portraits were unheard of—as well as these incredible life-size portraits of children and elderly folks from a nearby poorhouse, whom she compensated for their modeling. I’m thrilled to be working on the first US solo exhibition of her work!
Amanda: I’m so curious to know––is there anything about the particular design or the layout of this exhibition that’s been tailored to her work?
Design for Paula Modersohn-Becker: I Am Me
Kylie: There’s a section with freestanding walls, and each wall will hold one life-size portrait. We’re aiming for an immersive and personal encounter with her models, one-on-one.
Amanda: I can’t wait to experience that. What does it feel like once an exhibition has finally opened?
Kylie: It’s a great joy but also sort of painful, really. I love seeing everyone’s work realized in something physical. When an exhibition opens, I don’t have to stare at pixelated little thumbnails on my screen anymore—I get to see these great works in person. But then it ends, and my heart is slightly broken. I remember at one of my first big deinstallations, I wore all black. I was in mourning.
Amanda: Oh, no! Was it The Language of Beauty in African Art?
Kylie: Yes!
Amanda: I knew it!
Kylie: It was the kind of show that only happens in the United States maybe once every 10 or 15 years. It was just monumental. The objects were beautiful, stunning, and very, very fragile. There were over 250 of them from across sub-Saharan Africa. I was so excited when it opened that I brought what felt like every person I’ve ever known to see it. My family, my friend groups … I think I took people from my church on four different occasions.
Amanda: I remember! I love that. Kylie, tell me a bit about how you came to manage exhibitions. I know that it was sort of a winding journey, in a way.
Kylie: It did feel that way at the time, but looking back I think there was a real throughline at work.
I’d wanted to be an artist since I was five years old, and I ended up going to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a bachelor of fine arts with an emphasis in art history. For a while I thought I was going to contribute to the art world through historical research. But by the time I graduated, I’d completed a couple of internships here at the museum—with Prints and Drawings and European Painting and Sculpture—and I was part of a weeklong immersive program, the Andrew W. Mellon Summer Academy, that introduced undergraduate students to different museum professions. Today we offer a similar program, the McMullan Family Foundation Summer Intensive.
In 2012, stopping by the museum during a visit to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a prospective student
Far left, with members of the 2014 Andrew W. Mellon Summer Academy
So my horizon of what seemed possible had really expanded. And then school ended, and there was nothing.
Amanda: Right––such a tricky time.
Kylie: And I was like, “What am I supposed to do?” The answer of course was that I should probably work somewhere. So I worked retail for a couple of years. And while doing that I came to realize that I’ve been gifted—I’m not sure that’s the right word—but that I’m good at leading large teams and collaborating with people.
Amanda: You are absolutely gifted! You thrive in that environment.
Kylie: Yeah. And I’m able to zero in on the nitty-gritty details of a project and zoom out to see the big picture at the same time.
Amanda: That skill in particular is so crucial to your work. You are also great about supporting the entire team and making sure that everyone is able to thrive.
Kylie: This is something that I really work hard at. I want everyone involved in a project to feel free to say what they’re thinking and what needs to be said, both for their sake and because it benefits the team.
Amanda: That’s such a generous and effective way of leading a project. What came after retail, by the way?
Kylie: I spent a year at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern as a curatorial assistant, which was a wonderful experience. And then a photo editor role opened up at the Art Institute in Publishing. The position involves managing image rights and reproductions, artist copyrights, and book production, and this was exactly the sort of administrative work I was interested in. And after working on exhibition catalogues for a while, I transitioned to my current role.
Amanda: I love that you were able to have early-career opportunities here, learn more about yourself outside the Art Institute, and then find your way back in a role that felt right.
Kylie: Yeah. Those early experiences were truly so helpful—and so special to me as someone who grew up in Chicagoland loving art.
Amanda: Do you remember the first time that you visited the Art Institute?
Kylie: My strongest memory is of an artwork that I saw in the fifth grade. It was the painting of Hercules fighting the Hydra by Gustave Moreau.
Amanda: Such a classic!
Kylie: I remember thinking, “That’s sick. That’s so cool.” A seven-headed snake? Amazing. I also wondered if all of the paintings at the Art Institute have these crazy stories of bloodshed, war, romance, and angst. It turns out a lot of them do!
Amanda: That’s so true! And are there any objects in the museum that have come to hold special meaning for you as you’ve worked here?
Kylie: I love the Tiffany window, or the Hartwell Memorial Window, as it’s formally known. It’s this gorgeous depiction of nature and God’s glory. The techniques that the main designer, Agnes F. Northrop, used are just ingenious, and the work really resonates with me personally. It says at the bottom, “My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth,” which very much is a truth that reigns over my life. Everything that I’ve done is owed to the Lord, and I love being reminded of that every time I step into that space.
With the Hartwell Memorial Window
Amanda: And you really have accomplished so much here. Speaking of which, what are you most proud of in your work at the museum?
Kylie: I’m particularly proud to be working with such amazing and talented colleagues. As an intern, I would go into a meeting and just listen to everything being said. I knew that I was learning from the best.
You were absolutely one of those people, Amanda. And though your role in curatorial research doesn’t intersect a whole lot with mine from day to day, we’ve gotten to know each other really well through staff-led initiatives, like the Narratives and Content working group, which is tasked with making the language we use and the stories we tell as an institution ever-more inclusive and more carefully considered. That’s work that’s tremendously important to me and, really, to the betterment of the art world. I’m also part of the Asian/Asian American or Pacific Islander (A/AAPI) Collective—we meet up every few months and will read a book by an A/AAPI artist, have a potluck, or sing our hearts out at karaoke!
Amanda: Fun! I love how involved you are in these groups, and I can really see how your focus on getting to know your colleagues as people first has made your work as a project manager so much stronger.
Kylie: Thank you. I’m so fortunate to be working with such fun and talented people to bring our exhibitions to life and to navigate all the complexities of working in the art world today alongside them.
Amanda: I know that so many of our colleagues are grateful to work with you, too, Kylie––including me. Thank you so much for talking me through the making of an exhibition and sharing a bit about yourself today. This was fun!
Kylie: It’s totally my pleasure. I’m looking forward to hearing what members think about our exhibitions this fall. So if you see me in the galleries, everyone, please say hello!
—Kylie Escudero, exhibition project manager, and Amanda Block, director, curatorial documentation and research
