Creative Time, a non-profit dedicated to socially engaged public art, has announced the promotion of former chief curator Nato Thompson to artistic director, and hired Elvira Dyangani Ose as the organization’s new senior curator.
Working together under the leadership of Creative Time executive director Katie Hollander, Thompson—who has been with the organization since 2007— and Dyangani Ose will collaborate on presenting public art programs, and widening the organization’s global reach.
Some of Creative Time’s recent projects included Pedro Reyes’s sold-out political house of horrors, Doomocracy; Duke Riley’s Fly By Night; and the Kara Walker’s much-talked about work at the Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, A Subtlety.
The New York-Based organization also hold the annual Creative Time Summit, a global convening at the intersection of arts and politics. The most recent iteration was held in Washington, DC, last October, and previously in Venice as part of the 56th Venice Biennale, and in Stockholm.
Thompson, who recently published the book Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life, said in a statement, “The possibilities, and the need, for engaged public art have never been so great and so urgent. Creative Time has long been committed to addressing social and political issues on a global scale, and I look forward to continuing those efforts with our amazing team.”
Joining the organization as senior curator on July 1, Elvira Dyangani Ose is an independent curator at the Fondazione Prada in Milan, and a lecturer at Goldsmiths in London, where she will continue to teach. Previously, Dyangani Ose worked as curator of international art at London’s Tate Modern, and curated the 2015 Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art.
“I’m honored to be joining Creative Time,” Dyangani Ose said in a statement. “The quality and impact of the work that this organization has done over its history is politically and culturally challenging and very much in line with my current academic and curatorial interests. I look forward to working with Katie and Nato and the whole team, bringing the socially relevant work that Creative Time is known for into public forums.”