Penelope Curtis confirmed as director of the Gulbenkian Museum – publico

                 

                         
                     

                         
                     

                         

                 

 
                         

The current director of Tate Britain, Penelope Curtis, will assume leadership of the Gulbenkian Museum from next autumn, as the PUBLIC had reported day 20. The news was confirmed on Tuesday in a statement by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

                     

                          “I want to keep all that is good in the museum, I admire deeply, and while working for the museum to benefit from its potential and its context, a more comprehensive, especially in relation to the center of Modern Art, “says Penelope Curtis said in a statement sent to newsrooms. The Modern Art Centre is currently directed by Isabel Carlos, curator and art critic, who has been in office since 2009 .

The British of 53, who studied Modern History at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and has a master’s degree and a PhD on post-Rodin French sculpture at the Courtauld Institute of Art, also says “feel excited to be the first foreign to assume the position of director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum “and also” the possibility of working in Portugal a strong institution that seeks new ways. ”

The name of British art curator and historian was chosen from nearly three dozen candidates for an international competition sponsored by the foundation to fill the seat left open with the output John Castel-Branco Pereira, who directed the museum from between 1998 and 2014. Your choice was made through an international competition that included the contribution of a British recruitment company specializing in the cultural area – Liz Amos Associates, which has its own Tate Britain among its main customers -. and a jury appointed by the Foundation, whose composition has not been disclosed

In the tender notice published in the site the Gulbenkian, it was stated that the future director would be responsible for “guiding the implementation of a management plan in 2017, will present a unified framework to support the Foundation’s activities in the visual arts and Decorative “. A formulation that seems to predict a very close relationship between the museum and the Modern Art Centre (MAC) of the foundation, something that does not exist today, and according to what we read in the site Liz Amos Associates about the contest has already taken very practical: Curtis will “additional responsibilities in fostering collaboration with the Modern Art Centre, in conjunction with its director, Isabel Carlos,” creating, “from 2017, a program interrelated exhibitions. “

” The vision and the curatorial authority of Penelope Curtis, as well as its high intellectual quality, will help to open a new cycle in the life of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, reinforcing its international dimension and its ability to intensify collaborations with major museums around the world, for example with the Tate, which has been early on a close and constructive partner, “said in the statement the Chairman of the Directors of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Artur Santos Silva, on this.

Most link between the Gulbenkian Museum and the CAM is something that Isabel Carlos sees naturally following the foundation of the administration’s decision to open a competition looking for a director for both museums . “The idea is a foundation that has a museum with two distinct poles museum – one for the founder’s collection, one with its modern and contemporary art collection,” explains the PUBLIC, “and in the future will be solved as well. It’s about a new vision for the two poles “, concludes.

Isabel Carlos, co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Art of the Ministry of Culture (1996-2001), whose mandate was renewed in the foundation 2014 for a period of three years, welcomes with satisfaction the name of Penelope Curtis. “We have a relationship of great understanding and respect” mutual describes, “and I have no doubt that will do a good job at the Gulbenkian Foundation.”

The two museums, which are among the most important sector institutions in Portugal, add two different types of collection. The Gulbenkian Museum houses a collection of Sarkis Gulbenkian, about six thousand pieces ranging from classical and oriental antiquity to European painting of Manet or Turner, and pieces of jewelery and decorative arts; CAM is home to an important collection of modern art and contemporary Portuguese and also includes British art of the twentieth century and later.