I am an art historian, museum professional, and educator based in Louisville, Kentucky. My work focuses on collective memory in painting and sculpture, with particular attention to counter-monuments, politically engaged public art, and museum-critical practices in German-speaking Europe from the late nineteenth century to the present. I am especially interested in how artworks and built spaces help us think about history when traditional forms of remembering fall short, and how they keep memory from settling into something final or unchangeable.
My research bridges art history, museum studies, and cultural heritage law. I am drawn to projects that refuse closure and reveal how national narratives are continually renegotiated rather than fixed. This includes work on counter-monumentality as a historically grounded and ethically charged mode of public engagement, as well as scholarship on institutional critique, accessibility, and community-centered museum practice. Across these areas, I am committed to interdisciplinary thinking and to connecting theory with real-world institutional contexts.
Before entering art history, I trained as an artist, drawing interiors in charcoal and becoming attentive to the way space can hold memory, absence, and quiet emotional residue. That early studio practice continues to shape how I look at artworks and sites today, particularly those that allow history to remain unresolved and alive rather than sealed into narrative certainty.
I hold an MA in Museum Studies, where my graduate training included collections care, provenance research, cultural heritage law, and interpretation. My master’s research examined Nazi art looting and restitution, requiring sustained engagement with German-language archival materials and revealing how historical meaning is shaped as much by absence as by preservation. This work sharpened my interest in counter-monumental practices as responses to what remains unsettled in the historical record.
Alongside my academic work, I have professional experience in museums and in the hospitality industry, including in leadership roles. These experiences shape my approach to teaching and collaboration, grounding it in attentiveness, care, and respect for lived experience. I currently teach undergraduate art history courses for non-majors, where I focus on making art history accessible, rigorous, and relevant to everyday life.
I live with my husband and our pets, and outside of work I am happiest in museums, libraries, historic spaces, and places that invite slow looking, reflection, and conversation.
Kathryn E. Jacob 