Cleveland Museum of Art Hires Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art

For more information please contact:
Saeko Yamamoto, 216-707-6898, syamamoto@clevelandart.org
Caroline Guscott, 216-707-2261, cguscott@clevelandart.org

CLEVELAND (September 26, 2013) – The Cleveland Museum of Art announces the appointment of Beau Rutland to the position of Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art. Rutland will be tasked with further developing the museum’s contemporary art program with Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Reto Thüring, including planning exhibitions at the museum and the Transformer Station and new rotations of the permanent collection in the museum’s contemporary art galleries. Rutland will start at the museum on September 30, 2013.

“The museum’s commitment to contemporary art exhibitions and scholarship has never been stronger,” said David Franklin, Sarah S. and Alexander M. Cutler director. “We are excited to have Beau join the staff of the Cleveland Museum of Art to help us continue to realize our visions for the contemporary art program.”

Rutland is currently an independent curator and writer based in New York. He holds a Masters in Modern Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies from Columbia University, where he recently co-curated Speak, Memory, a thematic exhibition of leading international artists, at the University’s Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery. He previously served as a curatorial assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art, working closely on the special exhibitions Glenn Ligon: AMERICA and Singular Visions. He is a prolific writer, contributing to Artforum and Artforum.com as well as to several exhibition catalogs for the Whitney and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among others.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the curatorial team at the Cleveland Museum of Art at such a pivotal moment in the institution’s history,” said Rutland. “The museum’s profound commitment to contemporary art is truly exciting and I’m looking forward to bringing innovative artwork made by some of the most interesting artists today into the context of the museum’s world-class collection.”

The museum’s contemporary art collection has strong holdings of American and European artists, particularly paintings. Recent acquisitions have expanded this focus, including sculpture and works in new media. The museum regularly exhibits works by leading contemporary artists, most recently Damián Ortega, Janet Cardiff, Fred Wilson and Martin Creed. Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, the inaugural installation in the museum’s Ames Family Atrium, explores the issues of cultural patrimony, national pride and China’s ongoing relationship with its own history. The exhibition will be on view through January 26, 2014.

In September, the museum opened its first exhibition at the Transformer Station, a new contemporary art museum owned by the Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Foundation. The Unicorn, organized by Reto Thüring, explores questions of memory and the reconstruction of the past. The group exhibition features Neïl Beloufa, Martin Soto Climent, Shana Lutker, Haris Epaminonda and Daniel Gustav Cramer. The works, some of which were created specifically for this exhibition, explore how memory is constructed by individuals looking backwards from a constantly shifting point. The exhibition is on view through November 30, 2013.