The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York has appointed Meg Onli curator at large, the first person to hold this position in more than fifteen years. Onli, who with Chrissie Iles is concurrently the 2024 Whitney Biennale, most recently served as co-director and curator of the Underground Museum in Los Angeles. In her new role at the Whitney, she will organize exhibitions, suggest acquisitions and advise on special projects. With artist Alex Da Corte and Scott Rothkopf, chief curator and new director of the museum, she will co-curate Whitney’s 2026 exhibition Roy Lichtenstein, the first retrospective of the artist’s work to appear in an institution. New Yorker for over thirty years.
“Meg is that rare innovative thinker who sees the future while respecting the past,” Rothkopf said. “I have already been blown away by Meg’s reflection on the Biennale and know she has even more to contribute as the Whitney’s first curator in over a decade.”
Onli spent less than a year at the Underground Museum after arriving in 2021, departure as the family of the late Noah Davis, the nonprofit’s founder, struggled to cede control. Since 2019, she previously held the position of associate curator of contemporary art at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, where she curated the tripartite group exhibition “Colored People Time” and a survey of the work of painter Jessica Vaughn, and co-curated a retrospective of the work of the revolutionary video artist Ulysses Jenkins. Onli was the first winner of the figure skating prize created by Virgil Abloh’s Art Space, a former Warhol Foundation Fellow and a former Getty Research Institute Fellow.
“It really is a dream job,” Onli said. “I have always admired the Whitney’s long history of defining exhibitions and supporting emerging artistic practices. I am very happy to be part of the life of the Whitney, to collaborate and explore with the incredible team here. I also really appreciate the flexibility of the role, which gives me the opportunity to focus on creativity and bring new ideas and perspectives to the Museum. It’s humbling to represent my hometown of Los Angeles and its star art scene. I look forward to being an ambassador and building bridges between emerging and unheard voices in the art world and the Whitney.
The Whitney also announced the promotion of Assistant Curator Laura Phipps to Associate Curator. Phipps is the curator of the historical retrospective “Yellow Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map,” on view at the Whitney through Aug. 13.
