The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, a temple of 20th-century modernism whose Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side will celebrate its 65th anniversary next year, boasts the cutting edge of contemporary art with the hiring of Noam Segal as associate curator on art and technology.
Segal begins her tenure today (March 27) as the museum’s LG Electronics Associate Curator, a position that falls under the LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Initiative, a five-year partnership between the museum and the Korean electronics giant. . She will work across departments to inform the many ways the museum is engaging with new technological developments, from digital art and robotics to artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
“I look forward to beginning to work with my colleagues to develop exciting new programs and continue to shape the future of digital art at the museum,” Segal said in a statement, describing the Guggenheim as “an institution that advances art and technology through research and inquiry, rigor and responsibility, and a clear commitment to artists and sustainable futures”.
Segal currently works at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where she is a professor and research director in the Masters in Curatorial Practice program. Last year, she was part of the conservation team of the Berlin Biennale and organized a performance by Maria Hassabi as part of the International Triennial Front in Cleveland. His previous projects include curating or co-curating a Neïl Beloufa exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, a Pope.L exhibition at La Panacée in Montpellier, France, and an Anri Sala exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Segal “has demonstrated a clear and sensitive curatorial vision for the future of this field,” Guggenheim Chief Curator and Deputy Director Naomi Beckwith said in a statement. Kate Oh, Vice President of LG, confirmed: “Segal’s vast expertise allows him to be aware of the very impulse of cultural and creative innovations, while his eyes scan the horizon of emerging technologies.”
In his new role, Segal will produce scholarship and other public-facing materials related to art and technology issues. She will also host an art presentation near the end of the five-year initiative between the Guggenheim and LG, according to a museum spokesperson. This partnership, announced last June, includes the creation of a $100,000 LG Guggenheim Prize recognizing an artist’s achievements in technology-enabled art. The first recipient of this award will be announced later this spring at the museum’s premier gala, the Young Collector’s Council Party. (Last year the Guggenheim abandoned its biannual Hugo Boss Prize of $100,000, first awarded in 1996.)
