Insights into the comic collection of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum
Jenny Robb, chief curator of comics and cartoon art, leads a tour of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum in Columbus and shows us some of her favorites.
Barbara J. Perenic, The Columbus Dispatch
Throughout her journey in the world of curating, Julieta González’s love for art exhibitions has taken her around the globe, from the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, Venezuela, to the Tate Modern in London, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo in Brazil, the Museo Jumex in Mexico City and more.
This fall, González will add Columbus to that list, joining the Wexner Center for the Arts as its new exhibition director.
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Having appeared in many different venues throughout her career, including galleries, museums, and private collections, this is her first work in an academic setting, a self-described “multidisciplinary laboratory for contemporary art and culture”—the perfect petri dish for González’s research-based approach to curatorial work.
Her goals include leveraging the university’s diverse academic ecosystem to build relationships and partnerships between departments and artists, she said.
“Having a university as a resource is something really incredible for research opportunities,” she said. “I want to work in an interdisciplinary way, with different departments, not just art, architecture, film or even area studies departments, but also think across disciplines and maybe collaborate with academics as well.”
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According to González, next year’s exhibitions are already set and she will begin developing exhibitions for 2026. In the meantime, she will work on organizational elements for the Wex’s exhibitions department and collaborate with others, such as the education department, to develop public programs for existing exhibitions.
In these efforts, she pursues a value that has run through her entire career: At its core, she says, art belongs to its community, offering the marginalized or overlooked a space to discover themselves and imagine a better future.
“Being able to make people who think they don’t own anything feel like, ‘Whatever is in the museum is yours,’ is something very important and something I’ve tried to work on my whole life,” she said.
“It’s not just about opening up access, but also giving people something they can actually identify with and creating a sense of belonging.”
