Jessica Morgan gives a press tour of the 10^th Gwangju Biennale, Burning Down the House.

Jessica Morgan, Artistic Director of the 10^th Gwangju Biennale, has been appointed director of the Dia Art Foundation, the board of trustees announced September 11. She will assume her position in January 2015.

The Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, at the Tate Modern in London since 2010, Morgan will oversee all aspects of the foundation’s endeavors, including the Western land projects, site-specific commissions, and collections and programs at Dia:Beacon.

"The Board of Trustees has unanimously and enthusiastically voted to appoint Jessica Morgan as Dia's fifth Director," said Nathalie de Gunzburg, Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Dia Art Foundation and member of the search committee. "When we met with Morgan and spent time sharing ideas and exploring her vision for Dia, we knew that her commitment to artists, coupled with her rigorous curatorial approach and exhibition history-both deeply rooted in scholarship-mirrored what Dia has stood for over its history. She has the broad experience and leadership skills to take Dia forward as both a commissioning and collecting institution. And, she is at the center of the global conversation on contemporary art. We are confident that Morgan will keep Dia true to its vision and unmatched legacy, while exploring new directions, engaging a new generation of artists, and reaching new audiences."

The Dia Art Foundation was founded in 1974 to initiate, promote and preserve major projects by artists. It also oversees several site-specific installations as Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field (1977) in New Mexico, and Dan Flavin’s untitled (1996), Max Neuhaus's Times Square (1977) and Joseph Beuys's 7000 Oaks (1988) in Manhattan.

"Dia has been the intellectual touchstone for me in my formative years as a student and curator. I have carried its ethos for putting artists first into all of my subsequent work in the US, UK, and beyond. I am honored to lead and advance what I believe is an institution of singular vision and commitment to artists at a moment in its history and at a time when the art world is changing," said Morgan. "More than ever, artists-and the public-need and deserve the long-term support of artists that Dia has championed."

Morgan has curated numerous group and solo exhibitions, including Saloua Raouda Choucair, Gabriel Orozco, John Baldessari: Pure Beauty, The World as a Stage, Martin Kippenberger, Time Zones, Common Wealth, and the Turbine Hall Unilever Commissions, working with artists Tino Sehgal, Carsten Höller and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, since she joined Tate. She was previously Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, where she organized exhibitions of work by, among others, Ellen Gallagher, Olafur Eliasson, Rineke Dijkstra, Marlene Dumas and Cornelia Parker. Prior to that she was an Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, where she curated the survey of Mona Hatoum. She has curated the exhibition of Urs Fischer for MOCA Los Angeles, Damien Ortega for ICA Boston and The Unruly History of the Readymade for Jumex Collection.  

Morgan has published and lectured extensively on contemporary art and is a regular contributor to art journals including Parkett and Artforum. She holds an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London and a BA and MA in Art History from Cambridge University. She was a Mellon Fellow at the Yale Centre for British Art, Yale University and a Contemporary Art Curatorial Fellow at The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.

For more information from the Dia Art Foundation: http://www.diaart.org/press_releases/main/248