Kate Fowle. Photograph by James Hill, courtesy of MoMA PS1

MoMA picks Phaidon author as its new director

Kate Fowle, the British-born co-author of our Sterling Ruby book, is the new director of MoMA PS1

When we asked the British-born writer and curator Kate Fowle to conduct the Q&A for our Sterling Ruby book, we knew we were picking an art-world winner.  

Fowle was at the acclaimed Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. While working there she became the institution’s first chief curator; helped stage shows by David Adjaye, John Baldessari, Louise Bourgeois, Urs Fischer, Rashid Johnson and Anri Sala among others; and worked with the world-famous architecture practice OMA to oversee the design and opening of Garage’s first 56,000-square-foot Museum building in 2015. 

Even prior to her tenure in Moscow, she had a pretty bright career, serving as the inaugural international curator at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing; and the chair of the Master’s Program in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts in San Francisco; indeed, earlier in her career she has also worked for the British Arts Council. 

So, we’re pleased to see the board at the Musuem of Modern Art in New York take a similar view. They have just announced that Fowle has been appointed Director of MoMA PS1, the huge contemporary art exhibition space in Queens which, the institution says, “devotes its energy and resources to displaying the most experimental art in the world.”

 

Sterling Ruby
Sterling Ruby

The directorship shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for Fowle, who seems well prepared to take over from another Phaidon author, Klaus Biesenbach.

“It’s an honour to take the helm of MoMA PS1 at this juncture in its rich history,” she says. “I look forward to working with the team and board to create a generative environment where our outlook is transformed through artists and their perspectives on the world.”  

To read her full conversation with Ruby buy a copy of our Contemporary Artist Series book here. For more on the kind of work you might see in PS1, take a look at the 21st Century Art Book.