The Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) has appointed Stephanie Smith as its chief curator. Since 2014, she has served as chief curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Smith, who will join the ICA staff in November, will work closely with ICA director Lisa Freiman and education curator Johanna Plummer.
At the AGO, Smith oversees the curators, conservation, publications, and library and archives. Prior to the AGO, she was at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art for 15 years, serving in various roles, including deputy director and chief curator. She got her start at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and also worked as a curator at the art gallery at Houston’s Rice University, where she earned her MA in art history and her BA in history and art history.
Among the exhibitions she has curated are “Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art,” which debuted at the Smart Museum in 2012 before a national tour, and “Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art” at the Smart in 2004. She was on the curatorial team for the 2013 Athens Biennale in Greece.
The ICA is scheduled to open in fall 2017 in a $41-million, 41,000-square-foot building designed by Steven Holl Architects. Read our story here.
