Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, today announced the appointment of Guggenheim Curator Karole PB Vail as Director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and Director of the Foundation's Italian section. Vail will take office in Venice this month and report directly to Richard Armstrong.
The most recent exhibition curated by Karole Vail for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, organized in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, was the retrospective Moholy-Nagy: Future Present (2016 ) which achieved great acclaim from critics and audiences. You are currently collaborating in the organization of the Alberto Giacometti retrospective, which will be presented at the Guggenheim museum in New York in 2018.
Richard Armstrong said: “Having worked closely with Karole Vail for nearly a decade I have the deepest respect for her academic grounding, curatorial insight, unerring judgment and collegial management style. I have the utmost confidence in your ability to guide the Peggy Guggenheim Collection for years to come, and know that your personal ties to the museum and Italian and European roots will give your work a depth and Without precedents. "
William L. Mack, Chairman of the Guggenheim Board of Trustees said, “Karole Vail takes the helm at an opportune time when the Peggy Guggenheim Collection enjoys record attendance and a robust exhibition program, having recently completed a successful financing campaign to raise the necessary capital to support profound renovation projects of the Palace. Karole's appointment ushers in a new, special and inspiring chapter in the history of the museum."
Karole Vail said: “I have known and loved Peggy's collection since I was a child, as well as the building and the garden that house it. It is now my privilege and honor to lead this outstanding institution, carrying Peggy's vision forward and ensuring it continues to play as vital a part in today's culture as she would have wanted. I take on this task with a sense of great responsibility, an eye to the future, and a deep appreciation for all that is extraordinary that Peggy has accomplished.
Karole PB Vail, curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and a member of its curatorial staff since 1997, will take office as Director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Director of the Foundation's Italian section in Venice in June 2017.
Among the Guggenheim Museum exhibitions in which she has worked as curator or co-curator, in addition to Moholy-Nagy: Future Present and Alberto Giacometti, we mention: Peggy Guggenheim: A Centennial Celebration (1998); Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim (2005-06); and From Berlin to New York: Karl Nierendorf and the Guggenheim (2008).
Karole Vail was also collaborator and coordinator of: Surrealism: Two Private Eyes, The Nesuhi Ertegun and Daniel Filipacchi Collections (1999); Armani (2000); Boccioni's Materia: A Futurist Masterpiece and the Avant-Garde in Milan and Paris (2004); Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition: Photographs and Mannerist Prints (2004); Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York (2006); Solomon's Gift: The Foundation Collection of the Guggenheim, 1937-1949 (2007); Richard Pousette-Dart (2008); Kandinsky (2009), in conjunction with which you also organized the photographic exhibition Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter in the Guggenheim's Sackler Center for Education; Picasso Black and White (2013); and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility, Mirror Works and Drawings 1974-2014 (2014-15).
Among her many publications, in collaboration with other authors or edited by her, are: The Museum of Non-Objective Painting: Hilla Rebay and the Origins of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which she conceived and published in 2009 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum; Moholy-Nagy: Future Present, which received an Honorable Mention at the 2017 Association of Art Museum Curators Awards for Excellence; Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim; and Peggy Guggenheim: A Celebration. Karole Vail has also written texts and entries for various catalogs including: Kandinsky, Armani and Surrealism: Two Private Eyes, The Nesuhi Ertegun and Daniel Filipacchi Collections.
She is the co-founder and co-director of Non-Objectif Sud, a non-profit artist-in-residence and exhibition program in the south of France.
Before joining the Guggenheim, Karole Vail worked as an archivist and researcher in Florence at Centro Di, a publishing house and documentation center specializing in the publication of art history, architecture and decorative arts books, and as assistant curator in independent projects. Karole Vail completed her studies in the UK, earning a Bachelor of Arts from Durham University and a Diploma in Art History from the New Academy for Art Studies in London.
Carole Vail
Director, Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Guggenheim Foundation Director for Italy
Photo: David M. Heald
© The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 2017
