GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM AND UBS LAUNCH UNPRECEDENTED CROSS-CULTURAL PROJECT Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative Five-Year Cross-Cultural Collaboration Supports Art, Artists, and Curators from South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa (NEW YORK, NY, April 12, 2012) Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, and Jürg Zeltner, CEO of UBS Wealth Management, today announced an ambitious, fiveyear collaboration to chart creative activity and contemporary art from around the world. Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative will identify and support a network of art, artists and curators from South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa in a comprehensive program involving curatorial residencies, acquisitions for the Guggenheim s collection, international touring exhibitions, and farreaching educational activities. Unprecedented in its areas of concentration and approach, Guggenheim UBS MAP will catalyze creative exchange and help broaden the geographic outreach for the Guggenheim and other institutions around the world by fostering lasting professional relationships among curators, artists, and educators on regional and global levels. Over its five-year period, the project will focus successively on the selected regions, beginning with South and Southeast Asia. The Guggenheim will invite one curator from each of the regions to participate in overlapping two-year residencies in New York, during which they will work in concert with the Guggenheim staff to identify new and recent artworks, that reflect a range of each region s most salient cultural practices and intellectual discourses. Works selected for the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative will be presented in traveling exhibitions, each of which will be inaugurated at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and will enter the museum s permanent collection. The exhibition will then be presented in the focus regions and in a major city elsewhere in the world. The first exhibition, focusing on South and Southeast Asia, will travel to two venues following the opening exhibition in New York. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are target cities where discussions are underway. In total, three exhibitions will travel to three venues each for a total of nine presentations. Each
exhibition will be accompanied by a dynamic and customized suite of audience-driven educational opportunities for the public, both at the exhibition venues and online. To a great degree, our view of art history remains Western-centric. Through this collaboration with UBS, we hope to challenge that view, and extend the art world to the real world s horizons, Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong stated. Having long admired UBS s involvement with contemporary visual art, we are grateful to the company for joining us in this project, which will forge and foster critical links among artists, audiences and diverse cultural communities including the Guggenheim itself. From the time of our founding, we have been committed to seeking out the most advanced contemporary art without regard to borders. Guggenheim UBS MAP will enable us to carry this mission forward as we learn from the inspirational artists and curators who are at the heart of this initiative and who will chart the course for our expanded thinking. Guggenheim UBS MAP builds upon and reflects the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation s distinguished history of internationalism, as manifest today in its global network of museums and wide-ranging art programs that promote the research, acquisition, and exhibition of non-western art and transnational studies. UBS and its clients share a passion for art, and we are proud to be working with an organization with the reputation and stature of the Guggenheim, said CEO of UBS Wealth Management Jürg Zeltner. As longtime patrons of contemporary art, we look forward to a collaboration that will support creative talent in many dynamic regions around the world. This powerful and timely project will promote professional and cultural exchange, bring contemporary art to a wider audience and encourage the acquisition and exhibition of artworks that open important new perspectives locally and internationally. Throughout its 150-year history UBS has actively supported cultural and artistic endeavors across the world, with a focus on promotion, collection and educational activities in the world of contemporary art. Longstanding commitments to the internationally renowned art fairs Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, the UBS Art Collection and the UBS Art Competence Center offer a comprehensive and varied platform for art enthusiasts, students and UBS clients to participate in the art world. Regional partnerships with organizations such as the Swiss Institute in New York, the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland and The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and numerous exhibition sponsorships at leading museums around the world, testify to the passion for contemporary art which UBS shares with its clients.
Phase 1: South and Southeast Asia The first phase of the project will focus on the art of South and Southeast Asia. June Yap has been selected as Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, South and Southeast Asia, having been nominated by a committee of five esteemed experts on these regions: Patrick Flores, Professor, Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines; Kwok Kian Chow, Senior Advisor to the Board and CEO, National Art Gallery, Singapore; Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Sandhini Poddar, Associate Curator, Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; and Kavita Singh, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Ms. Yap has begun her twoyear residency at the Guggenheim in New York. Based in Singapore, Ms. Yap has worked for six years in the curatorial departments of museums of modern and contemporary art, including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore, and the Singapore Art Museum, and another four years as an independent curator. Through her curatorial projects she has worked with artists throughout South and Southeast Asia, most recently organizing an exhibition of the work of Ho Tzu Nyen for the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011. June Yap s outstanding expertise in contemporary art from South and Southeast Asia, and her longstanding leadership in the field, make her ideally suited for her new role as the first Curator of Guggenheim UBS MAP, stated Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. We are looking forward to learning from her perspectives on the art of a broad and multifarious region that the Guggenheim s collection does not yet adequately represent. We hope that her essential role in this new initiative will in turn help contribute to and sustain an expanded network of regional and international curators, artists, educators, and museums. I m delighted to have been selected as curator for South and Southeast Asia for Guggenheim UBS MAP, stated Ms. Yap. I m excited by the prospect of participating in this project, and see it as an occasion to generate dialogue between the regions, which I hope will continue beyond the project. I am grateful to the Guggenheim and UBS for this valuable opportunity to play a part in a remarkable undertaking that underscores their commitment to promote cultural exchange and conversation. Ms. Yap has recently begun to work with members of the Guggenheim curatorial staff to identify what constitutes the defining geographic parameters of her research. Countries under consideration for inclusion in the first phase of Guggenheim UBS MAP are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. New
or recent artworks that represent key artists, movements, collaboratives, and creative networks from selected countries will be identified and the works will be proposed for accessioning into the Guggenheim s permanent collection. They will also form the basis of an exhibition that will open in winter 2013 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, before traveling subsequently to two venues. Phases 2 and 3: Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa The second and third phases of the project will focus on Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa respectively. Advisory committee members, curators, cities, venues, exhibition tour dates and more specific information about these regions will be announced later in the year. Education Programs All educational programs accompanying the exhibitions will evolve from a dynamic and inclusive process of cross-cultural and professional exchange among the Guggenheim curatorial and education staff, the project curators, the artists, and colleagues from each of the exhibition venues. The exchanges will focus on learning about the educational philosophies, approaches and programs at each of the regional venues, as well as their audience priorities. A minimum of two to three working sessions, both in the country of the venue and in New York, will ensure that interpretive materials and educational activities for Guggenheim UBS MAP will be codeveloped and customized to best serve the audiences identified for each venue and reflect a multicentered exchange process between museological cultures. Online offerings will provide rich content on the exhibitions, collection artworks, cultural contexts and programming and serve as a vibrant platform for audience engagement, multidisciplinary learning, and crosscultural exchange. The Guggenheim s website (guggenheim.org) will be instrumental in sustaining the initiative and extending learning and participation to a worldwide audience. The website will present online forums surrounding exhibition themes, a multimedia journal on the experience of researching and creating the exhibitions, and an archive of past public programs. The website will also include Teacher Resource Units to familiarize educators and students with the work of the artists and curators, and Family Activity Guides to aid enjoyment and provide suggestions for things that families can do and talk about when visiting the exhibitions. Information about Guggenheim UBS MAP will be interspersed throughout Guggenheim.org with a central hub for users to access the latest news stories, exhibition information, and program updates about the initiative. During the final year of Guggenheim UBS MAP, the Guggenheim will organize and host a culminating summit, including representatives from each of the exhibition venues to review their experiences and share
processes, findings, and accomplishments. Information gathered from the summit will be documented and shared with other arts and cultural organizations and the general public both regionally and globally. About the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. The global network that began in the 1970s when the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, was joined by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, has expanded to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (opened 1997), the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin (1997-2012), and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi currently under development. Looking to the future, the Guggenheim Foundation continues to forge international collaborations that take contemporary art, architecture, and design beyond the walls of the museum. More information about the Foundation can be found at guggenheim.org. About UBS UBS draws on its 150-year heritage to serve private, institutional, and corporate clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland. Its business strategy is centered on its global wealth management businesses and its universal bank in Switzerland. Together with a client-focused Investment Bank and a diversified Global Asset Management business, UBS will drive further growth and expand its wealth management franchise. Website Social Media guggenheim.org/map twitter.com/guggenheim facebook.com/guggenheimmuseum youtube.com/guggenheim flickr.com/guggenheim_museum foursquare.com/guggenheim For a complete press kit, go to guggenheim.org/presskits. For the press release in Arabic, Chinese, Chinese (simplified), Farsi, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese, go to guggenheim.org/pressreleases.
For publicity images visit guggenheim.org/pressimages User ID: photoservice Password: presspass April 12, 2012 #1237/MAP1 Press Contacts: Betsy Ennis Amy Wentz Jean-Michel Dumont Guggenheim Museum Ruder Finn Ruder Finn Asia 212 423 3840 212 715-1551 +65-62354495 pressoffice@guggenheim.org wentza@ruderfinn.com dumontj@ruderfinnasia.com UBS Americas UBS Switzerland UBS Asia Pacific Karina Byrne Christoph Meier Tim Cobb 212 882 5692 +41 44 234 83 16 852 2971 8200 Karina.Byrne@ubs.com christoph-g.meier@ubs.com Timothy.Cobb@ubs.com
GUGGENHEIM UBS MAP GLOBAL ART INITIATIVE Project Fact Sheet Project Collaborators Overview A five-year cross-cultural collaboration between the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and UBS in support of art, artists, and curatorial talent from South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa. Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and UBS The Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative will identify and support a network of curators and artists from South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa in a comprehensive, five-year program involving curatorial residencies, acquisitions for the Guggenheim s collection, international touring exhibitions, and farreaching educational activities. The Guggenheim will select and invite one curator from each of the regions to participate in overlapping two-year residencies in New York, during which they will work in concert with the Guggenheim staff to identify and select new and recent artworks that reflect a range of each region s most salient cultural practices and intellectual discourses. Works selected for the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative will be presented in traveling exhibitions, each of which will be inaugurated at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and will enter the museum s permanent collection. The exhibition will then be presented in the focus regions and in a major city elsewhere in the world. The first exhibition, focusing on South and Southeast Asia, will travel to two venues following the opening exhibition in New York. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are target cities where discussions are underway. In total, three exhibitions will travel to three venues each for a total of nine presentations. Each exhibition will be accompanied by a dynamic and customized suite of audience-driven educational opportunities for the public, both at the exhibition venues and online.
Curatorial Team Curatorial direction will be provided under the guidance of the New York based Guggenheim curatorial team of Deputy Director and Chief Curator Nancy Spector and Director of Curatorial Affairs Joan Young. Additional curatorial staff members will provide expertise and oversight throughout the project. PHASE 1: South and Southeast Asia Exhibition Locations Dates Regional Curator The first exhibition, focusing on South and Southeast Asia, will travel to two venues following the opening exhibition in New York City. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are target cities where discussions are underway. The first exhibition will open at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in winter 2013. Dates for the following two venues are to be announced at a later date. June Yap, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, South and Southeast Asia June Yap has been selected as the Curator of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative by a committee of five esteemed experts in South and Southeast Asian art. She has recently begun a two-year residency at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, where she will be curating the first exhibition in the initiative, focusing on the artistic practices and cultural traditions of South and Southeast Asia. Based in Singapore, Ms. Yap has worked for six years in the curatorial departments of museums of modern and contemporary art, including the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum. She also spent four years as an independent curator. Through her curatorial projects, Ms. Yap has worked with artists throughout South and Southeast Asia, most recently organizing an exhibition of the work of Ho Tzu Nyen for the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011. She is currently pursuing her PhD in cultural studies in Asia at the University of Singapore.
Advisory Committee Patrick Flores, Professor, Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines Kwok Kian Chow, Senior Advisor to the Board and CEO, National Art Gallery, Singapore Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Sandhini Poddar, Associate Curator, Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Kavita Singh, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi PHASES 2 and 3: Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa Phase Details Exhibition locations, opening dates, regional curators, and advisory committees for Phases 2 and 3 will be announced at a later date. For a complete press kit, go to guggenheim.org/presskits. For the press release in Arabic, Chinese, Chinese (simplified), Farsi, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese, go to guggenheim.org/pressreleases. For publicity images visit guggenheim.org/pressimages. User ID: photoservice Password: presspass Website guggenheim.org/map Social Media twitter.com/guggenheim facebook.com/guggenheimmuseum youtube.com/guggenheim flickr.com/guggenheim_museum foursquare.com/guggenheim
Press Contacts: Betsy Ennis Amy Wentz Jean-Michel Dumont Guggenheim Museum Ruder Finn Ruder Finn Asia 212 423 3840 212 715-1551 +65-62354495 pressoffice@guggenheim.org wentza@ruderfinn.com dumontj@ruderfinnasia.com UBS Americas UBS Switzerland UBS Asia Pacific Karina Byrne Christoph Meier Tim Cobb 212 882 5692 +41 44 234 83 16 852 2971 8200 Karina.Byrne@ubs.com christoph-g.meier@ubs.com Timothy.Cobb@ubs.com
GUGGENHEIM UBS MAP GLOBAL ART INITIATIVE Education Programming Overview Director of Education Programs All educational programs accompanying the exhibitions will evolve from a dynamic and inclusive process of cross-cultural and professional exchanges among the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation s curatorial and educational staff, initiative curators and artists, and colleagues from each of the exhibition venues. The exchanges will focus on learning about the educational philosophies, approaches, and programs at each of the focus-region venues in order to develop relevant offerings for their respective audiences. Kim Kanatani, Deputy Director and Gail Engelberg Director of Education for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Interpretive materials and educational activities for the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative will be codeveloped and customized to best serve the audiences identified for each venue. Anticipated materials and programs may include offerings for general museum visitors such as: Special public offerings collaboratively developed with the artists Programs for adults including lectures, panels, symposia, academic programs, and performances Multilingual exhibition pamphlets Films, audio tours, or other multimedia tools Family programs, resource materials for educators, and gallery tours Online Resources Online offerings will provide rich content on the exhibitions, collections, and programming and serve as a vibrant platform for audience engagement, multidisciplinary learning, and cross-cultural exchange. The Guggenheim s website (guggenheim.org) will serve as the hub and will be instrumental in sustaining the initiative and extending learning beyond geographical boundaries to actively invite worldwide participation.
The website will expand upon the educational programs and may include: Online chats and forums about the exhibition themes A multimedia journal documenting curatorial insights on the experience of researching and creating the exhibitions An archive of public programs lectures, panel discussions, performing arts events, symposia, readings maintained through multimedia documentation and abstracts Teacher Resource Units to familiarize educators and students with the work of artists and curators Family Activity Guides to aid enjoyment and provide suggestions Education Summit During the final year of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, the Guggenheim will organize and host a culminating summit, inviting representatives from each of the exhibition venues to review their experiences and share processes, findings, and accomplishments. Information gathered from the summit will be documented and shared with other arts and cultural organizations and the general public both regionally and globally. For a complete press kit, go to guggenheim.org/presskits. For the press release in Arabic, Chinese, Chinese (simplified), Farsi, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese, go to guggenheim.org/pressreleases. For publicity images visit guggenheim.org/pressimages. User ID: photoservice Password: presspass Website Social Media guggenheim.org/map twitter.com/guggenheim facebook.com/guggenheimmuseum youtube.com/guggenheim flickr.com/guggenheim_museum foursquare.com/guggenheim
Press Contacts: Betsy Ennis Amy Wentz Jean-Michel Dumont Guggenheim Museum Ruder Finn Ruder Finn Asia 212 423 3840 212 715-1551 +65-62354495 pressoffice@guggenheim.org wentza@ruderfinn.com dumontj@ruderfinnasia.com UBS Americas UBS Switzerland UBS Asia Pacific Karina Byrne Christoph Meier Tim Cobb 212 882 5692 +41 44 234 83 16 852 2971 8200 Karina.Byrne@ubs.com christoph-g.meier@ubs.com Timothy.Cobb@ubs.com
GUGGENHEIM UBS MAP GLOBAL ART INITIATIVE Curatorial Statement Beginning in the 1970s, when Peggy Guggenheim bequeathed her art collection and Venetian palazzo to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Guggenheim has established a global network of museums that today includes the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, both of which opened in 1997, in addition to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Other recent endeavors, including our Asian Art Program and the BMW Guggenheim Lab, as well as the ongoing planning and development of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and the recent feasibility study for a museum in Helsinki, continue to build on the Guggenheim s distinguished history of internationalism. The Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative evolved out of an intense institutional self-analysis in which we asked ourselves what it meant to be a global museum today. The museum recognized that because of unprecedented mobility, the expansive reach of cable and satellite television, and the interactive nature of today s primary medium, the Internet, a new understanding of world culture has emerged that is transnational and simultaneous sometimes even instantaneous: one can experience the immediacy of current events and cultural expressions in a constant stream of information. Ours is a networked society in which separate cultures overlap and commingle in provocative and meaningful ways, and the impulse towards homogenization has been eclipsed by connected and conjoined localities. We asked ourselves, How can the Guggenheim, with its own early history steeped in European Modernism, become meaningfully transnational? How can we recalibrate what we do from collecting to exhibition making to educational programming so that it reflects the multiplicity of cultural practices and their histories around the globe? With the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, we are pursuing an active engagement with artists, curators, and audiences in regions around the world that are underrepresented in our permanent collection South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa. Our goal is to catalyze an open exchange among different cultures through curatorial residencies, acquisitions, exhibitions, public programming, and online forums. Over a five-year period we will invite three curators, one from each of these regions, to work at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for overlapping 24-month residencies. They will share with us their wealth of knowledge about their areas of expertise and propose acquisitions for our permanent collection, which will form the basis for traveling exhibitions and attendant educational activities. We recognize that each of the designated geographic regions is utterly heterogeneous and thus impossible to
represent as a whole in any coherent manner. With that difficulty in mind, our guest curators will make a case for how they envision adding to the Guggenheim s collection in the most meaningful and relevant way possible, as well as how they imagine presenting the same material in an exhibition that will travel to their regions of focus. Through Guggenheim UBS MAP, the museum hopes to participate in rather than merely represent cultures around the world and in so doing map out a new art-historical model that is both integrative and contextual.
June Yap Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, South and Southeast Asia June Yap has been selected by a committee of five esteemed experts in South and Southeast Asian art as the Curator of Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative and has recently begun a two-year residency at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Ms. Yap is curating the first exhibition in the initiative, which focuses on the artistic practices and cultural traditions of South and Southeast Asia. The first exhibition will travel to two venues following the opening exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in the winter of 2013. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are target cities where discussions are underway. Based in Singapore, Ms. Yap has been an independent curator since 2008, working with artists throughout the regions. Most recently she organized an exhibition of the work of Ho Tzu Nyen for the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011. In 2010, Ms. Yap curated You and I, We ve Never Been so Far Apart: Works From Asia for the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv for the International Video Art Biennial. Prior to 2008, Ms. Yap worked in the curatorial departments of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum. She has organized exhibitions in Italy, Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Projects include Interrupt (2003), Twilight Tomorrow (2004), Seni: Singapore 2004, and Art & The Contemporary (2004) at the Singapore Art Museum; The Second Dance Song: New Contemporaries (2006) and The Future of Exhibition: It Feels Like I ve Been Here Before (2010) at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore; and Bound for Glory (2008) at the National University of Singapore Museum. Ms. Yap is the author of numerous exhibition catalogues and essays, and has conducted curatorial workshops in Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong. Ms. Yap is also currently a PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies in Asia program at the National University of Singapore. She holds a Master of Arts in Fine Art (Art History) from the University of Melbourne, Australia as well as Bachelor of Arts from the National University of Singapore in Philosophy and Sociology.
GUGGENHEIM UBS MAP GLOBAL ART INTIATIVE Advisors for South and Southeast Asia Patrick D. Flores Professor, Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines, Dilliman Curator, Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines, Manila Dr. Patrick D. Flores is Professor of Art Studies at the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines, Dilliman, and Curator of the Vargas Museum at the University of the Philippines, Manila. He is also Adjunct Curator at the National Art Gallery, Singapore. Dr. Flores was one of the curators of Under Construction: New Dimensions of Asian Art (2002) and the 2008 Gwangju Biennale. He was a Visiting Fellow at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1999 and an Asian Public Intellectuals Fellow in 2004. Among his publications are Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art (1999); Remarkable Collection: Art, History, and the National Museum (2006); and Past Peripheral: Curation in Southeast Asia (2008). Dr. Flores was a grantee of the Asian Cultural Council in 2010; a member of the advisory board for the exhibition The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds after 1989 (2011), organized by the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe; and a member of the Guggenheim Museum s Asian Art Council in 2011. Kwok Kian Chow Senior Advisor to the Board and CEO, National Art Gallery, Singapore Kwok Kian Chow is Senior Advisor to the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the National Art Gallery, Singapore, a new visual-arts institution scheduled to open in 2015. He was previously the founding director of the Singapore Art Museum, which opened in 1996. Under his directorship, the museum developed the world's largest collection of Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art and organized many landmark exhibitions, including Tryst with Destiny: Art from Modern India 1947 1997 (1997); The Origins of Modern Art in France, 1880 1939 (1998); Visions and Enchantment: Southeast Asian Paintings (2000); and Gao Xingjian Experience (2005). Author of Channels and Confluences: A History of Singapore Art (1996) and Modern Art of Southeast Asia (in Chinese, coauthored with Chow Yian Ping, 2006), Mr. Kwok is a frequent presenter at international art conferences and contributor to numerous publications. He was awarded the Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France in 2002 and the Public Administration Medal (Silver) by Singapore in 2003. He was the commissioner for Singapore's first participation in the São Paulo and Venice biennales and has served as a
member of the selection panels for the Philip Morris Japan Art Award, the Fukuoka Triennale, and the Hermes Korean Art Award. Mr. Kwok was a member of the Guggenheim Museum s Asian Art Council in 2011. Kavita Singh Associate Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Dr. Kavita Singh is an art historian whose research interests include the history and politics of museum collections, the social history of Indian painting, and the application of narrative theory to art. Dr. Singh is Associate Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has curated exhibitions for the Devi Art Foundation, Guragon (Where in the World: Indian Art in the Era of Globalization, 2009), and, as cocurator, the San Diego Museum of Art (Power and Desire: Indian Paintings from the San Diego Museum of Art s Edwin Binney III Collection, 2000). Dr. Singh has received grants and fellowships from the Getty Foundation, the Clark Art Institute, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Asia Society, New York. She is currently head of a partnership between the School of Arts and Aesthetics and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Max-Planck-Institut, for a project titled The Temple and the Museum Shifting Contexts of Art. Alexandra Munroe Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Since joining the Guggenheim in 2006, Dr. Alexandra Munroe has headed the Asian Art Program for the museum and its global affiliates, organizing the award-winning exhibitions The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860 1989 (2009) and Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe (2008), as well as, most recently, the retrospective Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity (2011). Dr. Munroe is internationally recognized for her landmark exhibitions and publications, including Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective (1989); Japanese Art after 1945: Scream Against the Sky (1994); YES YOKO ONO (2000); The Art of Mu Xin (2002); and Little Boy: The Arts of Japan s Exploding Subculture (2005), curated by Takashi Murakami. As Vice President of Arts and Culture at the Japan Society, New York, and Director of Japan Society Gallery from 1998 to 2005, Dr. Munroe organized acclaimed shows of premodern art and led the institution toward an inter-asian focus, culminating in the historic exhibition Early Buddhist Art from Korea and Japan (2003), organized in cooperation with the Korea Foundation and the Japan Foundation.
Sandhini Poddar Associate Curator, Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Sandhini Poddar joined the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in March 2007 where she is responsible for developing exhibitions, educational programs, and acquisitions of modern and contemporary Asian art. Ms. Poddar has curated Anish Kapoor: Memory (2008) and Being Singular Plural: Moving Images from India (2010), both of which originated at Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, and later traveled to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (in 2009 10 and 2012, respectively). At the Guggenheim, she was also a curatorial team member for Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe (2008 09); The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860 1989 (2009); and the retrospective Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity (2011).
Jürg Zeltner Professional history and education Jürg Zeltner became a member of the GEB in February 2009 and is CEO of UBS Wealth Management. Between February 2009 and January 2012, he served as co-ceo of Wealth Management & Swiss Bank. In November 2007, he was appointed as Head of Wealth Management North, East & Central Europe. From 2005 to 2007, he was the CEO of UBS Deutschland, Frankfurt, and prior to that, he held various management positions in the former Wealth Management division of UBS. Between 1987 and 1998, he was with Swiss Bank Corporation in various roles within the Private and Corporate Client division in Berne, New York and Zurich. Mr. Zeltner graduated from the School of Economics and Business Administration in Berne, and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. He was born on 4 May 1967 and is a Swiss citizen. Other activities and functions Mandates on boards of important corporations, organizations and foundations or interest groups: Mr. Zeltner is a board member of the German-Swiss Chamber of Commerce and the UBS Optimus Foundation.
Richard Armstrong Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation Richard Armstrong has served as Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation since November 2008. As head of the Guggenheim s executive staff, he focuses on the pivotal role of the New York museum and its collection while also providing leadership and management for the other institutions in the global Guggenheim network and for the Foundation s international programs. Mr. Armstrong works with senior staff to maximize all aspects of the Foundation's operations: permanent collections, exhibition programs, loans, acquisitions, documentation, scholarship, and conservation. Prior to his appointment at the Guggenheim, Mr. Armstrong served at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, as Curator of Contemporary Art (beginning in 1992), Chief Curator (1995), and Henry J. Heinz II Director (1996-2008). During his twelve years of leadership, the museum added significantly to its collection, acquiring multiple works from the Carnegie International exhibitions, accessioned the vast photographic archive of Charles Teenie Harris (one of the most important visual records of African American life in the 20th century), and acquiring through purchase and gift dozens of landmark works of 19th, 20th, and 21st century art (such as Rachel Whiteread s monumental Untitled (Domestic), the first joint acquisition in the Carnegie s history). Under Mr. Armstrong s guidance, the Carnegie also built up its curatorial staff, raised major support for its endowment, renovated its Heinz Galleries and Scaife Galleries, and expanded the Heinz Architectural Center. From 1981 to 1992, Mr. Armstrong was a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he organized four Whitney Biennials, as well as important exhibitions on subjects such as the work of Richard Artschwager and The New Sculpture 1965-75. In 1980, he served on the Artists Committee to organize the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. He began his curatorial career at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art in California. Mr. Armstrong serves in an advisory capacity on a number of foundation boards, including the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Kiev, Ukraine; the Artistic Council, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland; the Al Held Foundation, New York, NY; the Judd Foundation; and as Director, Fine Family Foundation, Pittsburgh. Mr. Armstrong is also a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD).
A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Mr. Armstrong graduated from Lake Forest College in Illinois with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and subsequently studied at the Université de Dijon and the Université de Paris, Sorbonne.
Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Nancy Spector is Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, which she joined in 1989. Responsible for contemporary programming and the growth of the permanent collection, she oversees the institution s primary acquisition councils, the Collectors Council and the International Directors Council. Exhibitions that Nancy Spector has organized at the Guggenheim include Rebecca Horn: The Inferno- Paradiso Switch (1992, with Germano Celant); Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1995); Robert Rauschenberg: Performance (1997); Postmedia: Conceptual Photography from the Guggenheim Museum Collection (2000); Moving Pictures: Contemporary Photography and Video from the Guggenheim Museum Collections (2002); Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle (2002-2003); Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated): Art from 1951 to the Present (2004); Marina Abramovic: Seven Easy Pieces (2005); Richard Prince (2007); Louise Bour geois (2008); theanyspacewhatever (2008); Tino Sehgal (2010); and Maurizio Cattelan: All (2011). At the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, she has overseen commissions by Andreas Slominski (1999), Hiroshi Sugimoto (2000), and Lawrence Weiner (2000), as well as organized the exhibitions Douglas Gordon s The Vanity of Allegory (2005) and All in the Present Must be Transformed: Matthew Barney and Joseph Beuys (2006). In addition to her position at the Guggenheim, Nancy Spector was one of the curators of Monument to Now, an exhibition of the Dakis Joannou Collection, which premiered in Athens in 2004 as an official part of the Olympics program. She was Adjunct Curator of the 1997 Venice Biennale and co-organizer of the first Berlin Biennale in 1998. She has contributed to numerous books on contemporary visual culture with essays on artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Luc Tuymans, Douglas Gordon, and Marina Abramovic. In 2007 she was the U.S. Commissioner for the Venice Biennale, where she presented an exhibition of work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. She is a recipient of the Peter Norton Family Foundation Curators Award (1993) and a Cartier Foundation Grant (1992). Five of her exhibitions at the Guggenheim have won International Art Critics Association Awards.
Kim Kanatani, Deputy Director and Gail Engelberg Director of Education for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation As the Deputy Director and Gail Engelberg Director of Education for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Kim Kanatani is responsible for developing educational programs with the Guggenheim Museums worldwide to work in synergistic exchange with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Kanatani directs the Sackler Center for Arts Education of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, an 8,200 square-foot facility that serves as a dynamic educational hub and learning laboratory for exploring and presenting a comprehensive range of program offerings in Modern and contemporary art for adults, youth, and families. Exploration and experimentation with new technologies as well as working with artists as collaborative partners in program development are among the Center s hallmarks. Active in the museum education field since 1981, she has published curriculum, resource materials, and articles on contemporary art and museum education, and was invited to be a museum scholar in residence at The Getty Research Institute in 2010. She has also co-produced several multimedia productions, educational installations, and other public offerings in collaboration with internationally renowned artists including Vito Acconci, Matthew Barney, Daniel Buren, Cai Guo-Qiang, Anna Gaskell, Paul McCarthy, Catherine Opie, Gabriel Orozco, and James Rosenquist. Kanatani holds an M.A. in art education with teaching credentials in elementary and adult education. Concurrent with her work at the Guggenheim Foundation, she formerly served as a faculty advisor with the Leadership in Museum Education Program at Bank Street College of Education in New York. Prior to joining the Guggenheim in 2001, she was the Director of Education at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which she joined in 1985.
Fact Sheet Mission Overview The mission of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is to promote the understanding and appreciation of art, architecture, and other manifestations of visual culture, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, and to collect, conserve, and study the art of our time. The Foundation realizes this mission through exceptional exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications and strives to engage and educate an increasingly diverse international audience through its unique network of museums and cultural alliances. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was established in 1937 with an international collection of avant-garde contemporary art and an endowment to operate one or more museums. The Foundation opened its first exhibition space, the Museum of Non- Objective Painting, in Manhattan in 1939. In 1943, seeking a larger, permanent home to exhibit its growing collection, the Foundation commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design a museum. In October 1959, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened in New York City in Wright s landmark building. Today the Guggenheim is a museum in multiple locations with access to shared collections, common constituencies, and joint programming. The global network that began in the 1970s when the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, was joined by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, and has since expanded to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (opened 1997), the Deutsche Guggenheim exhibition space in Berlin (1997 2012), and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi currently under development. With nearly three million annual visitors worldwide, the Guggenheim and its network of museums is one of the most visited cultural institutions in the world. Looking to the future, the Guggenheim Foundation continues to forge international collaborations, including innovative projects such as the BMW Guggenheim Lab, that bring contemporary art and architecture out of the museum and into the streets of cities
around the world. Thanks to its celebrated collections, special exhibitions, conservation efforts, educational initiatives, and scholarship, the Guggenheim is internationally recognized as a pioneer and touchstone for all cultural institutions. Collection The Foundation s collection ranges from Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern masterpieces to Minimalism, Post-Minimalism and Conceptual art to important works of contemporary photography, film, video, new media, and installation. The earliest work in the collection, Camille Pissarro s The Hermitage at Pontoise, dates to 1867. Among its most recent works are Ik-Joong Kang s 1392 Moon Jars (Wind) (2008 10) and Susan Philipsz s The Shallow Sea (2010). The story of the Guggenheim Museum is the story of several very different private collections. Central among them are Solomon R. Guggenheim's collection of nonobjective painting; his niece Peggy Guggenheim's collection of abstract and Surrealist painting and sculpture; Justin K. Thannhauser's array of Impressionist, Post- Impressionist, and early Modern masterpieces; and Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo's vast holdings of European and American Minimalist, Post-Minimalist, Environmental, and Conceptual art. These collections have been augmented over the last four decades by major gifts and commissions and through the distinct but complimentary acquisitions program of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Together with numerous other important purchases and gifts secured by the Guggenheim s directors and curators over the years, these acquisitions have contributed to the formation of a richly layered, international collection dating from the late nineteenth century to the present. Exhibitions/ Initiatives Institutions within the Guggenheim network present a wide-ranging and ambitious schedule of temporary exhibitions, drawn from both the Foundation s collection and from works on loan. In addition, the Foundation organizes and circulates exhibitions from its collection to venues not in the Guggenheim network and develops program initiatives beyond the walls of the museums such as the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a mobile think tank, exhibition space, and community center that is traveling to nine cities around the world. More information can be found online at: guggenheim.org twitter.com/guggenheim facebook.com/guggenheimmuseum youtube.com/guggenheim flickr.com/guggenheim_museum foursquare.com/guggenheim