The Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia (UGA) is thrilled to announce the appointment of Rachel Waldrop (née Reese) as Director and Curator of the Dodd Galleries and Athenaeum, a non-collecting contemporary art venue affiliated with UGA. 

“I am thrilled to join the vibrant culture at UGA—my alma mater—and contribute my knowledge and experience within the field to the well-respected Lamar Dodd School of Art," Waldrop said. “The Athenaeum is a new contemporary arts gem for the city of Athens, and I look forward to working with artists to activate it and engage with the city in new ways.”

Waldrop was most recently Director and Curator of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Chattanooga on the campus of the University of Tennessee Chattanooga (UTC) since 2020. The ICA Chattanooga is the first ICA in the state of TN, and since opening to the public in 2021, she led the ICA’s branding and strategic planning along with its ambitious exhibition schedule including solo exhibitions, among others, with Ilana Harris-Babou (2021), Terry Adkins (2021), Kristine Potter (2022), Jamie Isenstein (2022), Stacy Kranitz (2023), Kevin McNamee-Tweed (2023), Becky Suss (2024), and Adam Parker Smith (2024) along with associated acquisitions and new scholarship including course curricula.

Becky Suss: The Dutch House, 2024 exhibition installation view. Courtesy of Rachel Waldrop.

At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Waldrop drove the future vision for the ICA at UTC, advocating for and solidifying its reputation as a destination for contemporary art in Tennessee with several national reviews and publications.

“We’re so happy to welcome Rachel Waldrop as the new Director and Curator of the Dodd Galleries and Athenaeum,” Lamar Dodd School of Art Director Joseph Peragine said. “Her experience in contemporary art and curatorial practice will be a great asset to our school, and we look forward to seeing how she builds on these spaces as platforms for artists and community engagement.”

From 2015-2019, Waldrop was Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Telfair Museums’ Jepson Center in Savannah, GA, where she organized over 20 temporary and special exhibitions in the Jepson Center with associated acquisitions, that garnered multiple awards and myriad press. Select solo exhibitions include Suzanne Jackson: Five Decades (2019), Erin Johnson (2018), Carrie Mae Weems (2018), Paul Stephen Benjamin (2018), William Wegman (2017), Triple Candie (2017), Nick Cave (2016), among others. Waldrop also stewarded a reinterpretation of Telfair’s modern and contemporary permanent collection titled Complex Uncertainties: Artists in Postwar America (2016-2021).

Ilana Harris-Babou: Tasteful Interiors, 2021 exhibition view. Courtesy of Rachel Waldrop.

Waldrop held prior positions at Atlanta Contemporary in Atlanta; Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in Philadelphia; and Deitch Projects, Petzel Gallery and Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York. As an arts writer, Waldrop was the former editor of BURNAWAY magazine, and her writing and artist interviews appear in BOMB Daily, Temporary Art Review, TWELV Magazine, and ART PAPERS, among others. Recent publications include lead essay for Painter’s Refuge: A Way of Life (2022) on the work of Reginald Sylvester II (Pacific, New York), Notes for Tomorrow (Independent Curator’s Interntational, Pera Müzesi, Istanbul, Turkey), Suzanne Jackson: Five Decades (Telfair Museums, 2019), Howard Fonda: i and i, selected works 2007-2019 (2019), Ansley West Rivers: Seven Rivers (Telfair Museums, 2019), Radical Plastic (Cue Foundation, 2016), Jiha Moon: Double Welcome (Halsey Institute, 2016), Pratfall Tramps (Atlanta Contemporary, 2015).

Waldrop completed her BFA in painting at the Dodd in 2004 before pursuing an MFA in sculpture at City College of the City University of New York (CUNY) in 2009.