Photo by Tara Geyer
Kilolo Luckett
Founding Executive Director + Chief Curator
Kilolo Luckett is a Pittsburgh-based art historian and curator. With over twenty years of experience in arts administration and cultural production, she is committed to elevating the voices of underrepresented visual artists, specifically women and Black and Brown artists.
Luckett is founding executive director and chief curator of ALMA|LEWIS (named after abstract artists Alma Thomas and Norman Lewis), an experimental, contemporary art platform for critical thinking, dialogue, and creative expression dedicated to Black culture.
Luckett has curated exhibitions by national and international artists such as Peju Alatise, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Amani Lewis, Thaddeus Mosley, Tajh Rust, Devan Shimoyama, Shikeith, and Stephen Towns. She recently served as an Art Commissioner for the City of Pittsburgh’s Art Commission for twelve years. Luckett has held positions as curator of Facebook Pittsburgh’s Open Arts, consulting curator of Visual Arts at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, director of development at The Andy Warhol Museum, and curatorial assistant at Wood Street Galleries, where she helped organize shows on Xu Bing, Louise Bourgeois, Larry Bell, Catherine Opie, Nam June Paik, and Tim Rollins + K.O.S. to name a few.
She is a contributing writer to the exhibition publication Halston & Warhol: Silver & Suede. Luckett is also writing an authorized biography on Naomi Sims, one of the first Black supermodels.
Luckett was a recipient of the 2015 Mayor’s Award for Public Art for the Homewood Artist Residency and Women and Girls Foundation Women in the Material World Award. She was an honoree of the 50 Women of Excellence by the New Pittsburgh Courier. She is a former board member for the Braddock Carnegie Library Association, YMCA – Homewood branch, and Design Center Pittsburgh.