When I saw that the National Gallery of Art, named E. Carmen Ramos, their chief curatorial and conservation officer, I let out an audible gasp, just imagining the power that

she's going to have to shape what is considered American art and who is considered an American

artist. She spent 11 years at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as the acting chief curator

and curator of Latinx art. Before that, she was assistant

curator at the Newark Museum of Art in my beloved New Jersey. We're going to get into a lot of

what happens beyond the gallery walls, the ways Carmen was made to feel she didn't belong,

that the community she was trying to spotlight weren't worthy, and how she kept showing up

so that we could all see

ourselves in the places we come from on the walls of some of the most prestigious museums in America.

Carmen, thank you so much for doing this.

Oh, my pleasure.

I want you to tell me about the first art you were ever exposed to.

That's a good question.

I was a New York City kid and I was really fortunate to be able to have teachers that

utilize the resources of New York City museums as part of my learning. And in high school, I had a really

great history teacher. And we were learning European history. And he gave us this very long

assignment where we had to go to the Metropolitan over several weekends.

So it wasn't just one day to look at art from the historical periods that we were studying in class.

And that was my first experience at the Metropolitan.

And I remember initially I went with a friend of mine and we went together and then I started going by myself. And I just loved it. I just fell in love with the experience of looking at art, just using my imagination and my eyes to sort of think.

And it wasn't a way that I was accustomed to learning, right?

At school, you sort of, you know, you learn facts and, you know, and wrote learning and all

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