Aden Weisel is the Founding Director of Gallery WW and a curator, art historian, and writer based in Baltimore. Her exhibitions often explore place, politics, and identity. She has a deep interest in artists’ choice of medium, especially those with art historical significance or that have been deemed lesser art forms, craft, or women’s work.
Weisel is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with a degree in Art History, Theory and Criticism and a concentration in Curatorial Studies. The Curatorial Studies concentration and later Curatorial Practice MFA at MICA were established by George Ciscle, Founding Director of The Contemporary and MICA’s Curator-in-Residence. Ciscle's concentration program culminated in the Exhibition Design Seminar, which Weisel participated in during her Sophomore year at MICA, working on the Curatorial and Exhibition Design Teams for Baltimore: Open City, an exhibition highlighting the ways in which Baltimore is and is not accessible to it various residents. During her MICA education, Weisel also participated in numerous museum and gallery internships, including: The Jewish Museum of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland; The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; The New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut; Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore, Maryland; and the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), Baltimore, Maryland.
Upon graduating from MICA, Weisel was immediately hired by the BMA to fill the position of Curatorial Assistant for the Department of the Arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific Islands (AAAPI), recently vacated by her internship supervisor. Weisel worked on the reinstallations of the African and Asian Art Galleries in preparation for the museum’s centennial celebrations, under Associate Curator for African Art and AAAPI Department Head Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch and Associate Curator for Asian Art Frances Klapthor. The reinstallations also included the inaugural exhibition of the AAAPI Rotating Exhibition Gallery, Diverging Streams: Eastern Nigerian Art. Weisel’s role became especially important, when Gunsch took on the position of Teel Curator of African and Oceanic Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, one year before the opening of the BMA’s reinstallations.
Weisel left the BMA to take on the role of Gallery Director at Galerie Myrtis. There, she curated the exhibitions Consumption: Food as Paradox and To Be Black in White America, the latter in participation with the Artscape Gallery Network. Consumption focused on artists—including Gallery WW’s Dave Eassa—who use food imagery to explore class, culture, race, religion, and gender. To Be Black in White America expressed the politicization of the Black Identity in the United States. Under the mentorship of Galerie Myrtis Owner and Founding Director Myrtis Bedolla, Weisel grew from Intern to Gallery Assistant to Gallery Director and was able to learn from the diverse clientele—artists and collectors—of the gallery.
Weisel has also worked as a Contributing Writer for BmoreArt, a web and print arts journal, under Editor-in-Chief Cara Ober. Her publications have covered The Contemporary's The Ground by Michael Jones McKean and DUOX4Odell's: You'll Know If You Belong by Wickerham & Lomax. She is working on a series of articles about collecting art.
Weisel is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with a degree in Art History, Theory and Criticism and a concentration in Curatorial Studies. The Curatorial Studies concentration and later Curatorial Practice MFA at MICA were established by George Ciscle, Founding Director of The Contemporary and MICA’s Curator-in-Residence. Ciscle's concentration program culminated in the Exhibition Design Seminar, which Weisel participated in during her Sophomore year at MICA, working on the Curatorial and Exhibition Design Teams for Baltimore: Open City, an exhibition highlighting the ways in which Baltimore is and is not accessible to it various residents. During her MICA education, Weisel also participated in numerous museum and gallery internships, including: The Jewish Museum of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland; The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; The New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut; Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore, Maryland; and the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), Baltimore, Maryland.
Upon graduating from MICA, Weisel was immediately hired by the BMA to fill the position of Curatorial Assistant for the Department of the Arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific Islands (AAAPI), recently vacated by her internship supervisor. Weisel worked on the reinstallations of the African and Asian Art Galleries in preparation for the museum’s centennial celebrations, under Associate Curator for African Art and AAAPI Department Head Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch and Associate Curator for Asian Art Frances Klapthor. The reinstallations also included the inaugural exhibition of the AAAPI Rotating Exhibition Gallery, Diverging Streams: Eastern Nigerian Art. Weisel’s role became especially important, when Gunsch took on the position of Teel Curator of African and Oceanic Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, one year before the opening of the BMA’s reinstallations.
Weisel left the BMA to take on the role of Gallery Director at Galerie Myrtis. There, she curated the exhibitions Consumption: Food as Paradox and To Be Black in White America, the latter in participation with the Artscape Gallery Network. Consumption focused on artists—including Gallery WW’s Dave Eassa—who use food imagery to explore class, culture, race, religion, and gender. To Be Black in White America expressed the politicization of the Black Identity in the United States. Under the mentorship of Galerie Myrtis Owner and Founding Director Myrtis Bedolla, Weisel grew from Intern to Gallery Assistant to Gallery Director and was able to learn from the diverse clientele—artists and collectors—of the gallery.
Weisel has also worked as a Contributing Writer for BmoreArt, a web and print arts journal, under Editor-in-Chief Cara Ober. Her publications have covered The Contemporary's The Ground by Michael Jones McKean and DUOX4Odell's: You'll Know If You Belong by Wickerham & Lomax. She is working on a series of articles about collecting art.
