By Sandra Schulman
BOCA RATON — In an art career that spanned 40 years and major cities, Kathleen Goncharov served for 14 of those years as the senior curator at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, where she curated more than 30 exhibitions featuring notable artists of national and international acclaim.
Ms. Goncharov died Dec. 31 at her home in Boca Raton, family members said. She was 73.
She retired from the museum in 2025. Irvin Lippman, former executive director of the Boca Raton Museum, said in a prepared statement:
“Kathy Goncharov was instrumental in installing galleries that were welcoming, as though you were entering an engaging conversation among artworks. It was her ability as a curator, and as a talented artist herself, that created this lively rapport.”
Lippman said Ms. Goncharov’s legacy “remains in the acquisition of many keystone artworks that remain on view at the museum, such as the 140-foot mural by Odili Donald Odita in the museum’s Ohnell Sculpture Garden, the monumental painting by Charles McGill (the last work the artist created before his untimely death), and the 30-foot tall cloud mural on the west side of the building by the Fluxus artist Geoffrey Hendricks that thousands of people drive by every day on Federal Highway.”
“In recent years, collectors, such as the late Agnes Gund, recognized her friendship and profound respect for Kathy by donating in her honor several artworks for the community to enjoy and pay tribute to Kathy Goncharov,” Lippman said.
A native of Michigan who held degrees from Central Michigan University and the University of Michigan, Ms. Goncharov began her career in New York City in 1980 as the curator at Linda Goode Bryant’s Just Above Midtown (JAM) Gallery. At JAM, she organized performances and exhibitions. She went on to serve as director of exhibitions at Creative Time, bringing art beyond the walls of traditional institutions and into the colorful fabric of New York.
She organized multiple exhibits of Art on the Beach, Art in the Anchorage, and projects staged in unusual spaces in the city — initiatives that have become the hallmark of Creative Time to make contemporary art both public and experimental.
From 1987 to 2000, Ms. Goncharov was curator of The New School Art Collection, where she operated at the intersection of art and education. She later served as public art curator at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, overseeing MIT’s Percent-for-Art Program and commissioning permanent works to integrate contemporary art into the holdings of a major research university. She also served as adjunct curator at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, where she curated the museum’s first contemporary exhibition in its new building.
Ms. Goncharov was executive director/artistic director of the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at Rutgers University from 2007-2011. She was responsible for selecting international artists to work in collaboration with the center’s master printers and papermakers to create new editions. She led the center’s advisory committee and guided outreach through exhibitions and educational collaborations; she placed editions and artists’ books in major collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.
A major highlight of her 40-year career was in 2002, when she was appointed United States Commissioner for the 50th Venice Biennale, for which she selected artist Fred Wilson to represent the U.S. This was a solid recognition of her international stature, and her commitment to artists whose work interrogates history, power, and institutional structures. She curated and organized exhibitions and projects internationally, including in Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, New Delhi, Bologna, Venice, and Rome, extending her commitment to global dialogue and cross-cultural exchange.
Gracie Mansion, pioneer of the 1980s East Village art scene, art consultant, curator, and adviser to individuals, museums, and corporations worldwide, was a longtime friend of Ms. Goncharov, who also was an artist herself.
“Kathy Goncharov was a loyal friend and a generous spirit who freely shared her friends and her knowledge. When we stayed together in Venice at the offices of the Emily Harvey Foundation, it would inevitably end up with someone sleeping on the couch and another sharing a bed. She never said no to anyone and at some point in the stay, she would cook a fantastic meal for the ‘extended family,’” Mansion wrote in a prepared statement.
“Kathy Goncharov was a visionary. She recognized talent early and went against the norms. A contemporary curator, she built on a depth of knowledge of the past. This duality informed her curatorial vision, making it accessible to many levels of viewers. She worked quietly, and in the future, historians will come face to face with an indisputable mountain of truth and beauty that is her legacy.”
News reports said Ms. Goncharov is survived by her longtime partner, Charles Doria, and numerous family members.
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