Richard Birkett will direct Glasgow International in 2024, the biennial Scottish contemporary art festival. Birkett has lived in the city for three years, having previously been chief curator at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts from 2017 to 2020, and curator at Artists Space in New York for six years prior to that.
His exhibitions in London include shows for Forensic Architecture and Cameron Rowland, as well as a retrospective of Julie Becker, the American artist who died in 2016. In America he worked with Julie Ault, Bernadette Corporation, Lukas Duwenhögger, Aaron Flint Jamison, Laura Poitras and Hito Steyerl on solo shows.
Birkett said of the appointment: ‘From its beginnings nearly twenty years ago, the strength of GI has lain in the depth and integrity of artistic, curatorial and community work occurring in Glasgow, and its reciprocity with discourse and practice occurring elsewhere. It is around an ethos of responsiveness, intersectionality, and collective care that I hope GI can reshape itself.’
In 2021 Richard Parry stepped down from the festival having curated the eighth and ninth editions in 2018 and 2021.
