Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Announces the Departure of Nancy Spector, Artistic Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator

NEW YORK, NY – (October 8, 2020) – Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, together with Nancy Spector, announced today that Spector is leaving the Guggenheim Foundation. Spector is the Artistic Director and the Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator, and is on the Executive Cabinet of the Guggenheim Foundation. Spector is leaving to pursue other curatorial endeavors and to finish her doctoral dissertation.

Spector has played a cardinal role in conceptualizing and overseeing the creative programming for the museum and its affiliates around the world. This has included the Guggenheim's exhibition calendar, as well as its collection strategy. A tireless advocate for the diversification of the Guggenheim's exhibition program and curatorial department, Spector hired BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color) curators, and led efforts to expand the collection to include works by artists of color, female artists, queer artists, and non-binary artists. She spearheaded the establishment of the Indigenous Study Group in the Curatorial Department and was an early advocate for Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion (DEAI) planning at the museum.

Spector said, "As I pursue new challenges, including completing my doctoral dissertation, I am humbled by the accolades I have received from colleagues around the globe. I am confident that the Guggenheim is stronger than ever before, and incredibly well-positioned to emerge successfully from the challenges presented by 2020.”

Armstrong said, “The Guggenheim is thankful to Nancy for her nearly 35 years of service, and grateful that Nancy responded to our call in 2017 to rejoin us as our first Artistic Director. Nancy has provided leadership and strategic vision for collections, exhibitions and public programs across all aspects of the Foundation and all the museums in our international constellation.”

William L. Mack, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, said “In her many years of service to the Guggenheim, Nancy Spector has over and again shown herself a rare visionary, much to the benefit of the museum. The Trustees join me in saluting her and wishing her well in the next chapter of her already accomplished life.” Wendy Fisher, President, added that “Nancy Spector is brilliant, highly respected, and personifies that rare combination of a keen eye and deep empathy for artists that is common to all great curators. Her impact on the Guggenheim has been profound, as is our gratitude and admiration.”

Nancy Spector further stated, “I am so pleased the Board of Trustees moved forward with an independent investigation that sought out the facts and confirmed what I have known from the start – which is that I did not treat the guest curator of Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story adversely on the basis of race.”

About Nancy Spector Nancy Spector has a renowned legacy as a champion of living artists, helping to realize their respective visions in numerous paradigm-shattering exhibitions and accompanying, scholarly catalogues. She conceived of, and beginning in 1996, oversaw the Guggenheim's prestigious, biannual Hugo Boss Prize which is awarded for excellence in contemporary art, and has supported a global array of artists whose work defined trenchant cultural trends.

Spector shaped the museum’s 2019 exhibition calendar to include Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection; Simone Leigh: Loophole of Retreat; Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now (Parts 1 and 2); and Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story, which collectively featured a number of artists and guest curators of color that was unprecedented in the museum’s history.

Heralded for her outstanding accomplishments providing conceptual and strategic leadership of collections, exhibitions, stewardship, curatorial, and public programs, Spector’s critically-lauded exhibitions include : The Inferno-Paradiso-Switch (with Germano Celant, 1992); Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1995); Robert Rauschenberg: Performance as part of the artist’s Guggenheim retrospective (1997); ’s The Cremaster Cycle (2002-03); : Spiritual America (2007); (with Tate Modern and Centre Georges Pompidou, 2008); Tino Sehgal (2010); : All (2011-12); : Asterisms (2012-13); and Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection (with Cai Guo Qiang, Paul Chan, Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu, Richard Prince, and Carrie Mae Weems, 2019). In 2007 she was the U.S. Commissioner for the Venice Biennale, where she presented an exhibition of work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. In 1998, she co-curated the first Berlin Biennial. She has contributed to numerous books on contemporary visual culture, with essays on artists such as Luc Tuymans, Roni Horn, Janine Antoni, , Tino Sehgal, and Mona Hatoum.

Spector's fundraising accomplishments have been critical for the Guggenheim. She has been an active and successful fundraiser for the museum during her tenure through major curatorial endeavors, such as the Panza Collection Initiative funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and corporate collaborations such as the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Arts Initiative, YouTube Play, and the BMW Guggenheim Lab.

She has served at the Guggenheim for more than a combined 34 years. She briefly left the Guggenheim and joined the Brooklyn Museum in April 2016 as Deputy Director and Chief Curator. During her year at the Brooklyn Museum, she reorganized the curatorial staff structure, launched the 10- exhibition program Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism, and spearheaded the cross-collection, long-term exhibition, Infinite Blue. She has earned repeated praise for her efforts to forge new ties to artists, cultural institutions, and audiences world-wide. She has also mentored a generation of curators, many of whose achievements have been recognized in the field of contemporary art.

She is a recipient of the Peter Norton Family Foundation Curators Award, five International Art Critics Association Awards, and a Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award for her work on Youtube Play, a Biennial of Creative Video. In 2014, she was included in the 40 Women Over 40 to Watch list. She was also awarded an Honorary Degree from Pratt Institute in 2019.

She received her Masters Degree in Art History from the Clark Art Institute at and her Masters of Philosophy in Art History from City University Graduate Center in New York.

About the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum & Foundation The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was established in 1937 and is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. The international constellation of museums includes the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; and the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. An architectural icon and “temple of spirit” where radical art and architecture meet, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is among a group of eight Frank Lloyd Wright structures in the United States designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. To learn more about the museum and the Guggenheim’s activities around the world, visit guggenheim.org. #1584 October 8, 2020

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