The National Gallery of Canada Names Kitty Scott as Deputy Director and Chief Curator
Dr. Sasha Suda, Director and CEO of the National Gallery of Canada, announced the appointment of Kitty Scott as its new Deputy Director and Chief Curator, effective January 6, 2020. With 25 years of major museum and gallery experience across Canada and internationally, Ms. Scott brings her expertise and a global network of artists, scholars, collectors and museum professionals to the Gallery.
“It is always a great honour to work with art and artists,” said Ms. Scott. “I look forward to my first day at the gallery and to engaging with the remarkable collection. I am excited to lead a team that thinks about significant treasures from the past alongside important contemporary works of art from around the world, as a way to imagine our future”.
Most recently the Carol and Morton Rapp Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Kitty Scott will be returning to the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), where she was Curator of Contemporary Art from 2000 to 2006. During her previous tenure at the Gallery, Ms. Scott acquired several of the collection’s highlights, including the iconic sculpture Maman (1999) by Louise Bourgeois.
“It is exciting to have Kitty Scott return to the National Gallery of Canada at a moment when we are re-engaging with our mandate in new, bold ways,” said Dr. Suda. “Kitty’s depth of experience, both nationally and internationally, and her future-forward vision for building collections and programs will enable us to resonate with our audiences across Canada and the world. We are looking forward to working with Kitty, the first woman to permanently hold the Chief Curator position at the Gallery, to grow and diversify our audience”.
Recently, Ms. Scott curated the critically-acclaimed exhibition Brian Jungen: Friendship Centre (2019) at the AGO and co-curated the well-received Liverpool Biennial, titled Beautiful World, Where Are You? (2018). A way out of the mirror (2017), Geoffrey Farmer’s moving installation at the Canada Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, is another of Ms. Scott’s curatorial successes. In 2012 Ms. Scott worked as a Core Agent on Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s dOCUMENTA (13). At the AGO, she distinguished herself by significantly adding to its collection, which now includes acquisitions by Mohamed Bourouissa, Paul Chan, Anne Collier, Moyra Davey, Tacita Dean, Luis Jacob, Pierre Huyghe, Duane Linklater, Silke Otto-Knapp, Frances Stark, Ron Terada, and Danh Vo.
Ms. Scott has written and lectured extensively on contemporary art and curating. Recent publications include an introduction to Ken Lum’s writings, Everything is Relevant; Writings on Art and Life 1991-2018, as well as catalogue essays on Stephen Andrews, Theaster Gates, Adam Pendleton and Melanie Smith. She also edited Raising Frankenstein: Curatorial Education and Its Discontents (2011) and co-edited Frances Stark: My Best Thing (2012).
