Tola Porter, Ph.D.

 

Tola Porter, Ph.D. is an art historian and museum educator. Dr. Porter is the lead staff member for all public and academic programs to enhance student, faculty, and community engagement at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami.

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Tola earned a Ph.D. in art history from Washington University in St. Louis, a master’s degree in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, and a master’s degree in arts administration from Columbia University.

 

Prior to joining the University of Miami's Lowe Art Museum, Tola served as a Curatorial Fellow at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis. She was selected as an Andrew W. Mellon National Humanities Without Walls Fellow, won a Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence, held two internships at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and sits on the board of Public Art Dialogue.

 

A specialist in modern sculpture, Dr. Porter’s interdisciplinary approach bridges the fields of modernism and public art to study the human experience of abstract public sculpture from the postwar era to today. Her dissertation, “Modernism as Public Art: Awakening Social Agency in Abstract Public Sculpture, 1950-1980,” evaluates the function and resonance of public sculpture from the mid-to-late twentieth century using phenomenological, anthropological, and Marxist lenses. Her research is in league with the global reassessment of monuments and the resulting critical engagement with public symbols. 

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