Robyn Farrell has been named senior curator of New York nonprofit the Kitchen. Farrell, who will step into her new role on August 1, comes to the organization from the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), where she was an associate curator in the department of modern and contemporary art. She arrives to the Kitchen while its longtime Chelsea home is being renovated, and so will begin her tenure at its temporary home of Westbeth, in the West Village. As senior curator, Farrell will be involved in all aspects of the Kitchen’s programming.
“It is wonderful to welcome Robyn Farrell to the Kitchen,” said Legacy Russell, the organization’s CEO and chief curator, in a statement. “Robyn shares in a dynamic commitment to the institution’s expanded mission, values, and future-vision. In her commitment to avant-garde histories, time-based media, and interdisciplinary exhibition-making, she brings an exciting and unique perspective to the field and we look forward to welcoming her as across the Kitchen’s community we advance to new heights.”
Farrell, an internationally recognized scholar on the work of German filmmaker and video art pioneer Gerry Schum, arrived to the AIC as a curatorial assistant in 2013, rising to become assistant curator in 2017 and associate curator in 2020. While at the Chicago institution, she worked on more than forty exhibitions, including “Kemang Wa Lehulere: In All My Wildest Dreams,” the first American institutional exhibition of work by the Cape Town native, and “Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again,” which traveled from the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. As well, she helped organize solo exhibitions of work by Gretchen Bender, Moyra Davey, Cauleen Smith, Martyne Syms, and Hito Steyerl, among others, and worked on the AIC iterations of Barbara Kruger’s “THINKING OF YOU. I MEAN ME. I MEAN YOU.” and “Gregg Bordowitz: I Wanna Be Well.”
“I am thrilled to join the Kitchen at this distinct moment in the institution’s history,” said Farrell in a statement, noting that the organization’s “unparalleled legacy and embrace of artist-driven media, process, and dialogue, aligns with my own commitment to interdisciplinary partnerships that bridge discourse and display, and traverse notions of time and place. I look forward to advancing the Kitchen’s groundbreaking program and vital mission that supports urgent contemporary voices, risk-taking experimentation, and impactful and inclusive exhibitions, live events, and publications.”
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