Dr. Leesa Fanning currently works independently specializing in contemporary global art in all media and brings outstanding experience to her role as independent curator and advisor through more than twenty years of extensive work in the visual arts. She is the former Curator of Contemporary Art at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. At the Nelson-Atkins Museum, she oversaw the contemporary art collection. Her curatorial purview also encompassed Noguchi Court, the second largest collection of Noguchi sculptures in the United States, and the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park, a 22-acre site with over 30 modern and contemporary works.

Fanning curated numerous exhibitions including Janet Cardiff’s Forty-Part Motet, Nick Cave: Property, Bill Viola’s The Raft, OpenEnded Group and Bill T. Jones’ After Ghostcatching, Cao Fei’s RMB City Opera, Wolfgang Laib: Without Place—Without Time—Without Body, Tapping Currents: Contemporary African Art and the Diaspora, Siah Armajani: Dialogue with Democracy, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle’s Vanishing Sky Shirin Neshat’s, Turbulent, and Realism and Abstraction: Six Degrees of Separation.

Fanning was venue curator for Philip Haas’ The Four Seasons, Impressions & Improvisations: The Prints of Romare Bearden, Through African Eyes: the European in African Art, 1500-Present, and George Segal: Street Scenes.

Fanning has taught multiple classes on contemporary art at the University of Missouri and the Kansas City Art Institute as well as African art at the University of Kansas. Fanning taught “Art In-Depth” courses at the museum on ritual and myth, Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle, and Shirin Neshat’s Turbulent.

Cambridge University Press published Fanning’s essay, “Willem De Kooning’s Women: The Body of the Grotesque,” in an anthology, Modern Art and the Grotesque. She has also written on Robert Motherwell and Adolph Gottlieb. Fanning was a contributor to the exhibition catalogue, Sparks! The William T. Kemper Collecting Initiative, and wrote essays on T.C. Cannon and Brad Kahlhamer in Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky. Brief essays on Wendy Red Star are forthcoming.

Most recently (2018), Fanning wrote essays for, edited, and oversaw production of The Spiritual in Contemporary Art, a 312-page publication distributed by Yale University Press. In order to research works for the publication Fanning traveled to see most of art represented in the book in person, and she met with many of the artists to discuss their work. For more information, see Publications on this website.

Fanning travels extensively to stay current with the ever-changing contemporary art world by attending art fairs and exhibitions around the world including the Armory Show and Frieze in New York City, Art Basel in Switzerland, the Venice Biennale, Documenta and the Munster Sculpture Project in Germany.

Fanning’s museum work provided the basis for deep knowledge of art and artists, the art market, research and connoisseurship skills, donor relationships, exhibition development including planning and design, as well as book design and production.

Fanning holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Kansas, an M.A. in art history from the University of Missouri, Kansas City, a B.F.A in Design from the Kansas City Art Institute, and a B.A. from the University of Missouri, in Columbia, in Psychology.