Viera Levitt
Gallery Director
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
The sensibility that Viera Levitt brings to her work as the Gallery Director at UMass Dartmouth is honed from wide-ranging experience around the world, and the exhibitions she curates here on the Southcoast are world-class: provocative, inspirational, and sophisticated.
For the young artists at UMass, Viera Levitt is a champion. She curates the annual MFA Thesis Exhibition, a seminal event for the students that’s much anticipated by the local community, as well as families, faculty and alumni. Together with her student assistants, she hangs more than 12 exhibitions annually and organizes or co-organizes many online and in-person events, opening and closing receptions, pop up exhibitions and artist talks.
In addition to student work, Viera brings nationally recognized artists to New Bedford. “I want to create interesting, challenging experiences so visitors walk away with something they didn’t expect, something they’re excited about,” says Viera. An example is the pandemic inspired online exhibition, “We’re All Contagious.” In collaboration with Nato Thompson, Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Contemporary, they shared the work of 39 artists from an impressive pool of 745 submitted works of art.
Viera has stockpiled so many accomplishments that one wonders how she managed to fit them in. She’s co-curated more than sixty exhibitions in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, and the United States. She’s lectured about contemporary art in Europe, Asia, India, Africa and the U.S. She was the youngest Museum Director/Curator at the Jan Koniarek Gallery in her native Slovakia, taught art history at Johnson & Wales University and at Community College of Rhode Island, had an ArtsLink residency at Rhode Island School of Design Graduate Studies, and an internship in photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
Despite her unimaginable schedule, Viera makes time to host AHA! Night events on the 2nd Thursday of every month, often with musical accompaniment. “I love the New Bedford arts community,” she says. “There’s a sense of family and a synergy to creating something we can all appreciate.”
May 12th AHA! Night’s event at the gallery in the Star Store Campus features UMass fashion design students sharing an eclectic collection of work from their annual runway event, as well as a jewelry/metals showcase featuring intricate work by senior and advanced students.
The June 9th AHA! Night will double as the opening of the exhibition “Sheltered,” reflecting on this year’s shelter theme by DATMA (known formally as the Massachusetts Design, Art, and Technology Institute). This exhibition is in partnership with local artist Alison Wells, who is curating an exhibition by contemporary Women Artists of Color exploring narratives that deal with the concept of Safety, Protection and Home.
