Comings and Goings

This month:

 

Clara Kim to join Walker Art Center

This August, Clara Kim will become the senior curator of visual arts at the Walker Art Center, where she began her curatorial career as an intern 14 years ago. Kim is currently gallery director and curator of REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in Los Angeles, where she first joined as assistant curator in 2003. Her most recent projects include Small Case Study House, 2009, a three-month residency and installation at REDCAT by Tokyo architecture firm Atelier Bow Wow. She also co-curated the 2010 Media City Seoul Biennale and is currently working on an international conference in Los Angeles on alternative practices and models, which is funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Before joining REDCAT, Kim worked in curatorial departments at SFMOMA and at the San Francisco Art Institute.

President of Museum of Latin American Art steps down

Richard Townsend announced that he has left his position as president and CEO of the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in order to pursue other opportunities. Townsend joined the museum in May 2009 and brought on current chief curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, with whom Townsend reshaped the vision of the museum and produced exhibitions which helped grow admissions. Fajardo-Hill will continue to lead the curatorial department. Townsend was deputy director for external affairs at the Miami Art Museum before joining MOLAA and, prior to that, was executive director and CEO of Price Towers Arts Center, a museum housed in the landmark building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He also held positions at the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa and the University of Tulsa. MOLAA's board of directors say they have begun a search to fill the position.

James Watt to retire from Met this summer

James C. Y. Watt will retire from the Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer, becoming curator emeritus of the department of Asian art on 1 July. Watt has been with the Met for 25 years, spending the last decade as Brooke Russell Astor Chairman of the department of Asian art. Before joining the museum, Watt was curator of Asiatic art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 1981 to 1985. Prior to that he was chairman of the board of studies in fine arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and curator of the art gallery at the Institute of Chinese Studies. During his time at the Metropolitan, Watt has put together numerous exhibitions including Splendors of Imperial China, Treasures from the Palace Museum, Taipei, 1996, China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 A.D., 2004-2005, and most recently The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty. Maxwell Hearn - who is currently Douglas Dillon curator for Chinese painting and calligraphy and has been at the Met since 1971 - will take over from Watt.

Christoph Vogtherr to be director of Wallace Collection

The Wallace Collection has appointed Dr. Christopher Vogtherr - currently acting head of collections and curator of pre-1800 paintings - as its next director upon the retirement of Dame Rosalind Savill this October. Prior to joining the Wallace, Vogtherr was curator of French and Italian paintings at the Foundation of Prussian Palaces and Gardens where he began a research project on French paintings in the collection of Frederick II sponsored by the Getty Foundation. He published a catalogue raisonné of the paintings by Watteau, Pater and Lancret in Berlin and Potsdam in December 2010 and has curated two exhibitions on Watteau which will open at the Wallace this spring.

Haus der Kunst names Okwui Enwezor as director

Okwui Enwezor will become the next director of Munich's Haus der Kunst in October 2011. He is currently adjunct curator at the International Center of Photography, New York and the Joanne Cassulo fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art independent study program, in addition to being director of Meeting Points 6. Enwezor has also recently been appointed chief curator of La Triennale, Paris 2012 and is serving as advisory curator to Dublin Contemporary in 2011. He also was the director of the second Johannesburg Biennale in 1996-97 and artistic director of documenta11 from 1998-2002. In 2006 he curated the Biennale for Contemporary Art Seville and in 2007-2008 the 7th Gwangju Biennale in Korea. Enwezor is succeeding Chris Dercon who will be taking over as director of the Tate Modern in April.

Frank Gehry joins USC faculty

The University of Southern California (USC) has named architect Frank Gehry to its faculty as the Judge Widney professor of architecture. Gehry - who was born and raised in Toronto, Canada - earned his bachelor of architecture degree from USC in 1954. He has also held teaching positions at Columbia University in New York and the Yale School of Architecture. His most iconic works include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the IAC Building in New York. Among his numerous awards are the Pritzker Prize and the National Medal of Arts. Currently, Gehry is working on the Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi, the Foundation Louis Vuitton Museum in Paris, and the Beekman Residential Tower in New York.

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