Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director, announced today that Lauren Cornell has been promoted to Curator and Associate Director, Technology Initiatives. In this role beginning July 1, Cornell will contribute to the New Museum's curatorial program through exhibitions, symposia, and online commissions, and she will elevate the Museum's profile as a historic leader in the art/digital realm. As a member of the Museum's senior management team, Cornell will bring focus and strategic thinking to all of the Museum's technology initiatives, both artistic and institutional, through new projects, advocacy, and publishing. She will work across departments to clarify, synthesize, and amplify the Museum's online presence and develop new initiatives to further its mission to promote "new art, new ideas." In addition to being responsible for the Museum's digital platforms and content, Cornell will also work to broaden its strong international community of collaborators through traveling exhibitions, projects, and public programs.
"This new post is a critical one at a moment when culture is increasingly consumed through social media and the web and as the digital continues to revolutionize the world, our work, and art. Lauren is in a unique position to take the conversation and the Museum forward and has already made an enormous contribution to our preeminence in the field. This new appointment reflects our commitment to innovation and is a recognition of her exceptional leadership," said Lisa Phillips.
"Through her work at the New Museum and at Rhizome first, Lauren Cornell has been tracking the influence of technology on art and culture at large. In her new position, she will help the Museum take an even more active role in engaging with the present and the future," said Massimiliano Gioni, Artistic Director.
Most recently, Cornell was co-curator with Ryan Trecartin of the highly successful "2015 Triennial: Surround Audience" exhibition. She is also coeditor with Ed Halter of the forthcoming book Mass Effect: Art and the Internet in the Twenty-First Century, one of the first volumes to document and critically map the evolution of art engaged with the internet in its so-called second generation, which will be released this fall by the New Museum and the MIT Press. From 2005 to 2012, she served as Executive Director of Rhizome and as Adjunct Curator at the New Museum. In this dual role, she founded the annual conference Seven on Seven, curated exhibitions such as "Free" (2010), and organized dozens of original performances and events with artists including Fatima Al-Qadiri, Nao Bustamante, Xavier Cha, Naeem Mohaiemen, Shana Moulton, and Trevor Paglen, among others. Since 2011, she has been on the faculty at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
About New Museum
The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum is a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.
