Kate Fowle is the new director of New York’s MoMA PS1.
The British-born Fowle, who previously spent five years as chief curator at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, and was director-at-large of Independent Curators International, succeeds Klaus Biesenbach as leader of one of the most influential contemporary art institutions in the United States.
Having started her career as a curator with Arts Council England, Fowle also spent a year in Beijing as the first international curator at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. During her time in Moscow, Fowle established a major research programme for artists, oversaw the opening of Garage’s new museum building (designed by Rem Koolhaas) and founded the Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art in 2017. She joins the museum at a period of increased attention as it attempts to compensate for the temporary closure of its partner institution, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, for renovations. The labour practices of the museum came under scrutiny last year when it was alleged by the Local 30 union during contract negotiations that the rates paid to its technicians and maintenance workers were below the industry standard, and when curator Nikki Columbus took out a lawsuit alleging that the museum had rescinded a job offer on learning she had recently had a child. The suit was settled in March.
In a statement, Fowle said that she would seek to ‘create a generative environment where our outlook is transformed through artists and their perspectives on the world’, demonstrating her firm grasp on curatorial jargon.
27 June 2019
