Lily Siegel, former assistant curator of modern and contemporary art at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, has been appointed executive director and curator of the Greater Reston Arts Center (GRACE), effective December 5. Siegel left the High in 2013 to become associate curator at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. While is Atlanta, she was also a member of BURNAWAY’s board of directors.
Addressing the challenge of regional institutions, Siegel said in a press statement: “GRACE is a strong regional voice well poised for national impact … I will promote that development through a robust exhibition program that includes local and international artists shown side-by-side.” She will also be responsible for stewarding the center’s annual Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival.
Located in Metro Washington, D.C., the center is in the midst of a push to increase exhibition and educational programming. GRACE works with 40 schools in the Metro DC area, both in the schools and in the gallery.
Siegel holds a BA in visual arts history and criticism from the University of California San Diego and an MA in modern art history, theory, and criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was a curatorial assistant at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, before joining the High Museum in 2012.
Siegel moved Washington, D.C., just over a year ago, and has worked as an independent curator as well as continuing to work with the Contemporary Jewish Museum as a guest curator for the exhibition “From Generation to Generation: Inherited Memory in Contemporary Art,” which opens on November 25. She is currently working on an exhibition of the late Moira Dryer, which is scheduled to appear at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. in Spring 2018. Siegel received a curatorial fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to conduct research for the Dryer exhibition.
GRACE board chair Robert Goudie says of Siegel: “Lily has already achieved a great deal in her young career, which speaks to her special talents. She brings outstanding academic achievement, a passion for contemporary art, a demonstrated ability to raise money for and manage significant projects, and a national perspective, relationships, and experiences.”
