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The Board of Trustees of Dia Art Foundation today announced the appointment of Philippe Vergne as Dia's new director. Mr. Vergne, currently deputy director and chief curator at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, assumes his post on September 15, 2008. He succeeds Jeffrey Weiss who left Dia in March of this year to resume his curatorial and scholarly career.
Mr. Vergne will lead a complex organization that comprises a museum in Beacon, New York, that houses Dia's renowned permanent collection of art from the 1960s to the present and marked its fifth anniversary this year; long-term art installations sited in the American West, in Manhattan, and on Long Island; and a dynamic contemporary art program in New York City, for which it is searching for a home.
Mr. Vergne stated: "I am deeply honored to assume the directorship of Dia Art Foundation. Dia's exemplary history, collections, projects, and programming have set the highest standards of commitment to excellence and risk-taking. By making the impossible possible, by enabling the creation of works that might not otherwise have been realized, Dia puts artists at the center of its activities and mission.
"Beyond being an institution, Dia is a laboratory and a muse. It represents a necessary, dynamic model-one that has challenged, refined, and deepened the rules of institutional engagement with artists, their art, and their audiences. Its contribution to the field of contemporary art and culture is invaluable. I am looking forward to working with and learning from Dia's outstanding staff and its highly dedicated board in leading this unique and inspiring institution towards a new chapter."
Mr. Vergne is a highly respected museum professional in the world of contemporary art. He joined the Walker in 1997 and has organized more than twenty-five international exhibitions, including How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age, Let's Entertain, Herzog & de Meuron: In Process, and the first retrospective of the work of Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping, a traveling exhibition that premiered at the Walker in October 2005. He additionally coordinated artist residencies with Joep van Lieshout, Christian Marclay, and Nari Ward, and oversaw the collection exhibitions that inaugurated the Walker's expanded facility.
In the fall of 2004, Mr. Vergne was appointed director of the Francois Pinault Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris. In July of 2005, when the Foundation moved its proposed museum from Paris to Venice, Mr. Vergne returned to the Walker as deputy director and chief curator. In 2006, he co-curated the Whitney Biennial, with Chrissie Iles, and in 2007, he organized Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love, the first survey of work by this artist; it premiered at the Walker Art Center before traveling to the Musée d'art moderne, in Paris; the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City; the Hammer Museum, in Los Angeles; and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, where it opens on July 5, 2008. |
