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When Scott Rothkopf, the previous deputy director and chief curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art, stepped up as director of the New York establishment final fall, he knew he must rent his substitute within the curatorial space. That position — probably the most influential within the up to date artwork world — can be stuffed, efficient subsequent week, by Kim Conaty, the museum’s curator of drawings and prints since 2017. In her new place she’s going to steer the establishment’s everlasting assortment and acquisitions, in addition to its exhibitions and conservation actions.
Conaty has a repute for creating reveals that please critics and crowds alike. Her celebrated 2022-2023 exhibition “Edward Hopper’s New York” was among the many best-attended within the museum’s historical past, whereas the 2023-2024 exhibition of drawings by Ruth Asawa that she organized with one other curator was lauded as “revelatory” by The New York Times. As the chief curator, Conaty stated she plans to deal with Latino and Indigenous artists, who stay underrepresented within the Whitney’s assortment, and put money into rising expertise. But she additionally intends to decelerate the tempo of gathering. “Gifts are usually not free,” she stated, referring to the price of storing and preserving artworks. “We’re being extraordinarily intentional about how we’re constructing the gathering.”
The Whitney has seen important turnover in recent times. In addition to the departure of its longtime director, Adam D. Weinberg, two high-profile curators — David Breslin and Jane Panetta — decamped for roles on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whereas its chief development officer, Pamela Besnard, retired final 12 months. Rothkopf has made a number of new appointments, together with selling the curator Adrienne Edwards to a newly created management position as senior curator and affiliate director of curatorial applications. The chief monetary officer I.D. Aruede was promoted to deputy director.
A couple of weeks in the past, Rothkopf had his first style of controversy as director when the museum was seemingly caught unaware that the artist Demian DinéYazhi’ had slipped a “Free Palestine” message right into a flickering neon signal within the Whitney Biennial, which opened on March 20.
Asked about how he and Conaty plan to navigate such bumps sooner or later, he stated, “In appointing Kim, it was necessary to consider somebody who had the sensitivity interpersonally and the mental sophistication to assist navigate the occasions that we’re in — I’m not going to be coy about that. These are key attributes for somebody at a museum just like the Whitney, which is so dedicated to the artwork and the concepts of our second.”
