Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has been appointed the new “superdirector” of two of Turin’s contemporary art institutions, the GAM (Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea) and the Castello di Rivoli. She was unanimously chosen from 171 candidates by a panel including Gabriella Belli, the director of Venice’s Fondazione Musei Civici, Bernard Blistène, the director of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Francesco Manacorda, the artistic director of Tate Liverpool.
From 1 January 2016, Christov-Bakargiev will be the first person to lead the two Turin institutions together, replacing Danilo Eccher, director of the GAM from 2009 to 2014, and Beatrice Merz, director of the Castello di Rivoli from 2010 to 2014. According to the job description, released in December 2014, the new five-year role involves co-ordinating the artistic programmes, international relations and internal management at both museums. This is a return to Turin for the US-born, Rome-based curator and independent scholar; she was chief curator at the Castello di Rivoli from 2002 to 2008 and interim director in 2009.
Christov-Bakargiev is currently the director of the 14th Istanbul Biennial, which opens on 5 September, a visiting professor at Northwestern University in Chicago and a guest scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. She directed Documenta 13 (2012) and the 16th Biennale of Sydney (2008).
