The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (LA MOCA) has appointed Clara Kim as director of curatorial affairs and chief curator.
Born in Seoul, and having grown up in the greater Los Angeles area, Kim expressed her excitement to return home: ‘it’s where my foundations are both on a personal level and within the art world.’ Kim has been senior curator of international art at Tate Modern since 2006, where she helmed a major 2010 survey of Steve McQueen, and Kara Walker’s Turbine Hall commission, Fons Americanus, in 2019. Kim also counts REDCAT, the San Francisco Art Institute and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as previous employers.
Outlining her vision for LA MOCA, Kim described a desire for the institution to be ‘locally rooted, [know] where we are, and embrac[e] all the incredible things that make LA LA’, while maintaining an ‘international perspective — not just looking out but looking at the connections and the histories that bind us together … the people and families and histories embedded in the city that we live in’.
She will take up her position on 1 September.
