Adrienne Edwards Appointed Engell Speyer Family Senior Curator And Associate Director Of Curatorial Programs
The Whitney Museum of American Art has appointed Adrienne Edwards to the position of Engell Speyer Family Senior Curator and Associate Director of Curatorial Programs. This promotion and the expansion of her duties will go into effect on Monday, February 26.
In her new role, Edwards will continue curating exhibitions, including the much-anticipated Edges of Ailey, opening on September 25, 2024, as well as leading a major research and collecting initiative. In addition, Edwards will report to the Director and advise on the Whitney’s overall artistic program. She will take on strategic oversight of the Museum’s Independent Study Program in partnership with ISP Director Gregg Bordowitz, fostering the development of its initiatives in its new home at the former studio of Roy Lichtenstein.
By expanding her role, the Museum recognizes Edwards’s significant contributions to the Whitney and the broader field. She will hold a leadership role as part of the Museum’s upper-level management team charged with strategic planning and serve as a national and international ambassador for the institution.
“Adrienne is recognized around the world as one of the most visionary curators and thinkers of our time. Each of her shows forges an innovative new model of what an exhibition can be, particularly with regard to how performance exists in museums,” says Scott Rothkopf, the Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney. “As I look to the Whitney’s future, I am thrilled that Adrienne’s scholarship and instincts for new talent will help define our artistic program while she also partners with Gregg Bordowitz on the next chapter of the ISP as an incubator of interdisciplinary inquiry.”
“I am exhilarated by the possibilities this expanded role offers in support of my work across artistic mediums, with artists deeply committed to rigor and experimentation, and in the histories and fields of study so often overlooked because they defy classification,” says Edwards. “Since my arrival to the Whitney now nearly six years ago, the boundary-pushing exhibitions, commissions, and publications I have realized have been generously and consistently supported and championed by the Museum. The chance to be a part of the leadership team under Scott’s new directorship is a thrilling opportunity to imagine and manifest the possibilities of the Whitney’s future. I very much look forward to partnering with the visionary artist and director Gregg Bordowitz to plot the future of the storied Independent Study Program, particularly at this singular juncture in its history, having new leadership and a newly dedicated building at the Lichtenstein Studio.”
Edwards has been working as a curator at the Whitney since 2018. She co-curated Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept and enhanced the strength and vitality of the Museum’s performance program. Since 2021, she has also served as the Whitney’s Director of Curatorial Affairs. In 2022, she was the President of the International Jury of the 59th Venice Biennale, as well as a jury member for the 40th anniversary edition of Videobrasil in 2023. She is currently organizing an exhibition and catalogue on the choreographer Alvin Ailey. Edges of Ailey, opening September 25, celebrates the life, work, and legacy of Alvin Ailey. Widely recognized for the dance company he founded in 1958, Ailey imagined and cultivated a platform for modern dance through his innovative repertoire, interdisciplinary sensibility, and support of other dancers and choreographers. Presented in the Museum’s expansive fifth-floor galleries, this multifaceted presentation encompasses a multimedia exhibition, daily performance program, and scholarly catalogue to offer a richly layered experience for understanding the artist anew.
Prior to the Whitney, Edwards served as curator of Performa in New York City and as Curator at Large for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Edwards’s curatorial projects have also included the thematic intergenerational and interdisciplinary exhibition and catalogue Blackness in Abstraction presented at Pace Gallery (2016); the traveling exhibition and catalogue Jason Moran at the Walker Art Center, ICA Boston, and Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2018–19); “Moved by the Motion: Sudden Rise” (2020), a series of performances based on a text co-written by Wu Tsang, boychild, and Fred Moten at the Whitney; Dave McKenzie’s first solo museum exhibition in New York City The Story I Tell Myself and its pendant performance commission “Disturbing the View” (2021) at the Whitney; and the performance collective My Barbarian’s twentieth anniversary exhibition and catalogue (2021–22) at the Whitney and ICA LA. She was part of the Whitney’s core team for David Hammons’s public art monument Day’s End.
