MoMA PS1 in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City has chosen Connie Butler, the longtime chief curator of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, as its next director, beginning in September. She replaces Kate Fowle, who departed the position unexpectedly last June.
The news of Butler’s appointment was first reported by the New York Times.
Butler is among the country’s most respected curators, having held top positions at several important institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, where she was chief curator of drawings from 2006 to 2014.
“Connie Butler is widely known and admired as a trailblazing curator and scholar, as well as a dedicated mentor to rising museum professionals,” MoMA director Glenn Lowry said in a statement. “With her close working relationships with artists, both established and emerging, and her long-standing connections to MoMA and New York, we know she will advance MoMA PS1 in all aspects of its ambitious program. I look forward to working with her again.”
During her tenure at the Hammer Museum, which began in 2013, she was key in significantly raising that institution’s profile, establishing it as one of the city’s most important museums and a place known internationally for mounting cutting-edge exhibitions.
Among her first exhibitions at the Hammer was the 2014 edition of the Made in L.A. biennial, which included a range of artists who are now well-established, including Wu Tsang, Samara Golden, Tala Madani, Clarissa Tossin, and A.L. Steiner. A major survey for Mark Bradford, his first institutional solo show in his hometown, followed. Other curatorial credits at the museum include solo outings for Marisa Merz, Lari Pittman, and Andrea Fraser, as well as a landmark retrospective for Adrian Piper, which was co-organized MoMA.
At MoMA, her two most important exhibitions were the first major US surveys for Lygia Clark (2014) and Marlene Dumas (2009–09), as well as “On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century” (2010). She served on the curatorial team of the 2010 edition of Greater New York at PS1.
Prior to joining MoMA, Butler was a longtime curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Her most well-known exhibition during her tenure there was 2007’s groundbreaking “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution,” which traveled to PS1 in 2008. That exhibition is widely credited with rewriting art history through a feminist lens, examining how activism helped shape the art-making of numerous women artists between 1965 and 1980. The exhibition’s catalogue, which includes short biographies for each of the 140 artists included, is now considered an essential text.
“MoMA PS1 has a remarkable and important history, a rich and exciting present-day community of staff, artists, and audiences, and a potential that seems unlimited,” Butler said in a statement. “I am honored to have been chosen to lead this institution, and I look forward to working with the Board and staff as we continue its mission serving the New York and Queens communities, as well as the broader international network of artists who represent MoMA PS1’s incredible past and future.”
In a statement, MoMA PS1 board chair Sarah Arison said, “Thanks to our in-depth search 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.”
Butler fills a gap at PS1 that has been left open for nearly a year. Fowle, who recently joined Hauser & With as senior curatorial director, had been at the helm for fewer than three years when she left the museum. The details of her departure were not disclosed at the time.
