JULIE DECKER
Julie Decker is the Director and CEO of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Alaska's premier art, history, science and cultural institution.
Decker has an extensive curatorial background combined with a long history initiating innovative Anchorage Museum programs and exhibitions. She is leading the museum beyond its recent expansion to position it as a key cultural institution in the North.
She was a member of the committee that oversaw the museum expansion and after joining the museum staff, curated major exhibitions including Gyre: The Plastic Ocean, Arctic Flight: A Century of Alaska Aviation, True North: Contemporary Art of the Circumpolar North, and This is Not A Silent Movie: Four Contemporary Alaska Native Artists.
Before joining the museum as chief curator in 2011, Decker curated numerous Anchorage Museum exhibitions on contract, including Andy Warhol: Manufactured, Quonset: Metal Living for a Modern Age, John Hoover: Art and Life and an annual series of exhibitions in the museum's former children's gallery.
She has authored and edited numerous exhibition catalogues and publications, including Gyre: The Plastic Ocean, Alaska and the Airplane, From Canvas to Steel: The Architecture of Ed Crittenden and Alaska, and Found and Assembled in Alaska.
Decker envisioned the museum's Polar Lab, which combines exhibitions, scholarship, public programming and community outreach to explore the current and future state of the North through culture, community and the environment.
She previously owned and ran Decker/Morris Gallery in Anchorage and was an instructor for the University of Alaska. She has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in contemporary art history, criticism and management from Union Institute and University and a master's degree in arts administration from Golden Gate University. Her work as an artist has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions throughout Alaska and is in the Anchorage Museum collection.