People

Art in America, March, 2001 by Stephanie Cash, David Ebony

Iwona Blazwick has been appointed director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London. For the last four years she worked on the launch of the Tate Modern as head of exhibitions and display. Blazwick, who assumes the position in June, succeeds Catherine Lampert who left after 13 years to pursue independent curating projects.

Rachael Blackburn, executive director and chief curator of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation in L.A. since 1997, has been named director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. Blackburn replaces Daniel T. Keegan, who is now executive director of the San Jose Museum of Art. She assumes her new post in April.

Steven A. Nash, associate director and chief curator for 12 years at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, was recently named director of the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. The center is scheduled to open in fall 2002. Nash will continue to be included in curatorial matters and planning the new de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Russell Ferguson, associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A., has been appointed deputy director of exhibitions and programs and chief curator at the UCLA Hammer Museum, a new position.

Denise Miller, director for 16 years of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago, has been named deputy director for programs and external affairs at the Yale University Art Gallery, a newly created position.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A. recently selected Brooke Hodge as its new curator of architecture and design. She was formerly assistant dean for arts programs at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.

Janet Baker, curator of Asian art at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, Calif., is now curator of Asian art at the Phoenix Art Museum.

Merrill Falkenberg was recently selected as the new associate curator at the San Jose Museum of Art.

The Henry Moore Foundation has named David Thorp its curator of contemporary projects, a revised program that supports new work in the U.K. Since 1992, Thorp was director of the South London Gallery.

Laura M, Giles is the new associate curator of prints and drawings at the Princeton University Art Museum. She had been research curator for Italian drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago.