Franklin Sirmans is the director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). Prior to taking his position at PAMM, Sirmans was Terri and Michael Smooke Department Head and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) from 2010 until fall 2015. At LACMA, Sirmans organized Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada, which traveled to the Wexner Center for the Arts in January 2016. He also curated Variations: Conversations in and Around Abstract Painting, Futbol: The Beautiful Game, Ends and Exits: Contemporary Art from the Collections of LACMA and the Broad Art Foundation, and coorganized the exhibition Human Nature: Contemporary Art from the Collection. Sirmans was also curator of modern and contemporary art at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas from 2006 to 2010, where he organized several exhibitions, including NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, Steve Wolfe: Works on Paper, Maurizio Cattelan: Is There Life Before Death?, and Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, 1964-1966. 

Some of his notable projects include “Basquiat” (Brooklyn Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; 2005); “Make it Now: New Sculpture in New York” (Sculpture Center, 2005); “One Planet Under a Groove: Contemporary Art and Hip Hop” (Bronx Museum of Art; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; 2001-2003); and “Ralph Bunche: Diplomat for Peace and Justice” (Queens Museum of Art, 2004).

He has also been a curatorial advisor at PS1 since February of 2006, and has organized exhibitions such as “Bearable Lightness” and solo presentations of artists including SunTek Chung, Philip Maysles, Curtis Mitchell, and Senam Okudzeto. He has taught art history most recently at both Maryland Institute College of Art and Princeton University.