LA MOCA has appointed Clara Kim as the next chief coordinator – ARTnews.com

Clara Kim, star curator at the Tate Modern in London with a focus on the interconnectedness of art communities along the Pacific Ocean, will be senior curator and director of curation at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Kim will begin her new role on September 1st.

Kim, born in Los Angeles, has been a senior curator of international arts at the Tate Modern since 2016, organizing an acclaimed poll of artist and director Steve McQueen in 2020 and the Turbine Hall Committee lauded by Kara Walker, Vence Americanosin 2019. While there, she helped expand Tate’s permanent collection, focusing on “postcolonial and transnational art histories that remap and remap art narratives,” according to a release.

She also served as co-curator of the 2018 Gwangju Biennale and the 2017 exhibition “Condemned to be Modern”, which was part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative. Previously, Kim was Senior Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Center for the Arts in Minneapolis and gallery director and curator at REDCAT in Los Angeles.

“Throughout my career, I have championed art through exhibitions, residencies, and commissions, driven by a fundamental belief in the potential for cultural dialogue and exchange to transform individuals and communities,” Kim said in a statement. A multiethnic and multilingual city, Los Angeles is uniquely positioned to chart new paths and horizons for contemporary art and what museums should look like in the twenty-first century.”

The position of chief curator at the long beleaguered museum has been vacant since 2018 after then-director Philip Virginie sacked Helen Molesworth, who soon left the institution. When Klaus Bessenbach joined the Foundation as Director, he did not appoint a Senior Coordinator, but rather Mia Lux as Senior Coordinator and Director of New Initiatives. Locks resigned from her role in early 2021, saying “MOCA’s leadership is not yet ready to fully embrace IDEA,” referring to the acronym Inclusion, Diversity, Equality, and Access.

Last September, the Department of Foreign Trade announced the restructuring of its senior leadership, downgrading Bessenbach from director to technical director and appointing Joanna Burton as CEO; The two were intended to co-lead the enterprise. Days later, Biesenbach announced that he was leaving MOCA to lead the Neue Nationalgalerie and the Next Twentieth Century Museum, two affiliated institutions in Berlin, where he made his start in the museum world.

Upon Biesenbach’s departure, Burton was appointed director of the foundation. Kim is Burton’s first major employee at the foundation.

In a statement about Kim’s appointment, Burton said: “I could not be more excited to announce that Clara Kim has joined MOCA at this pivotal moment in the foundation’s history and as I begin my tenure here. Clara is a talented, reliable curator and arts leader. She has extensive commissioning experience. , presenting, and contextualizing contemporary artists; leading global, interdisciplinary research initiatives; and building collections strategically. Her vision will help expand and broaden the museum’s distinctive legacy as we look forward to our next era.”