Closely watched curator Eva Respini has been named deputy director and director of curatorial programs at the Vancouver Art Gallery, effective August 1. Respini earlier this spring left her role as chief curator and director of curatorial affairs at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, after eight years at the institution. She will take over from interim chief curator Diana Freundl and, alongside CEO Anthony Kiendl, will shepherd the museum’s move to its new Herzog & de Meuron–designed home. The yet-to-be-constructed building is set to welcome its new tenant in 2028.
“The Vancouver Art Gallery has a remarkable history, a vibrant present-day community and boundless potential,” said Respini in a statement. “The gallery’s new building presents an opportunity to create a truly different museum for the 21st century—one that attends to and welcomes the local community, has a global reach and purview, fearlessly foregrounds artists and learning for all and sets the bar for ecological sustainability.”
Respini last year co-commissioned and curated Simone Leigh’s Golden Lion–winning US Pavilion for the Fifty-Ninth Venice Biennale. She gained acclaim during her eight-year tenure at the ICA Boston, curating well-received solo exhibitions of the work of John Akomfrah, Huma Bhabha, Cindy Sherman, and Walid Raad, as well as group exhibitions “Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today” (2018), and “When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art” (2019). Her most recent exhibition for the museum was a midcareer survey of Leigh’s work that will travel through 2025. Prior to her arrival at the Boston institution, Respini for fourteen years held various roles in the Museum of Modern Art’s department of photography.
Speaking with The Art Newspaper, the French-born Respini noted that the challenge of overseeing the museum’s move to its new home was key in her decision to accept her new role. Respini lauded the museum’s design, which draws from local artistic traditions, as embodying the institution’s programming.
“That’s what making shows is all about—being collaborative, open and transparent,” she said. “This is symbolic and emblematic of what the vision for the new gallery will be: porous, bold and embracing of everyone.”