MoMA PS1 today unveiled Connie Butler as its next director. Butler arrives at the Long Island City, New York, institution from the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, where she has served as Chief Curator since 2013. Known for her commitment to emerging local artists, she was Chief Curator of Drawings for the Robert Lehman Foundation in New York Museum of Modern Art from 2006 until its move to California. Butler will assume his new role on September 26th.
“We are thrilled for Connie Butler to join MoMA PS1 following her outstanding curatorial leadership at Hammer over the last decade,” MoMA PS1 Board Chair Sarah Arison said in a statement. “Thanks to our in-depth research process, we welcome a new director who deeply understands MoMA PS1 and our artist-centric DNA, and will ensure that we remain at the forefront of innovative programming that serves our communities locally and internationally.”
“With his close working relationships with artists, both established and emerging, and his longstanding connections to MoMA and New York, we know that [Butler] will advance MoMA PS1 in all aspects of its ambitious program,” he said. MoMA director Glenn Lowry in a statement, adding that he looked forward to working with her again.
While at MoMA, Butler co-hosted the critically acclaimed exhibition “Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–80” (2012) and a major survey of Mike Kelley’s work (2013). He curated the 2014 iteration of Made in LA and solo shows by artists such as Marisa Merz, Adrian Piper, and Lari Pittman. During her tenure at MoMA, she organized the first major US exhibition of Lygia Clark's work, and in 2010, she served as a member of the curatorial team for MoMA PS1's Greater New York quinquennial. Previously, he worked at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, arriving there in 1996 as a curatorial fellow. Among the exhibitions he organized or co-organized was the museum's 2007 historical exhibition “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution,” which he oversaw at MoMA PS1 when the show traveled there in 2008.
Butler replaces Kate Fowle, who left MoMA PS1 last June after three years in the role. Britain's Fowle took over the role, which had been vacant for a year, after longtime leader Klaus Biesenbach left to lead LA MoCA (now runs Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie). Fowle had only been in office for seven months when the global Covid-19 crisis broke out; this spring, she accepted a position as senior curator at top gallery Hauser & Wirth.
"MoMA PS1 has a remarkable and important history, a rich and exciting current community of employees, artists and audiences, and potential that seems limitless," Butler said in a statement. “I am honored to have been chosen to lead this institution and look forward to working with the board and staff as we continue its mission to serve the communities of New York and Queens, as well as the wider international network of artists representing the world. MoMA PS1, incredible past and future.”