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Parrish Art Museum Appoints Culture Strategist Corinne Erni As Curator of Special Projects
She already has big plans for the East End.
Eileen Kinsella
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The Parrish Art Museum announced that it has appointed Corinne Erni as curator of special projects effective September 1. Erni has an impressive track record: she spearheaded the New Museum‘s Ideas City biennial and co-founded ARTPORT_making waves, the global curatorial platform on art and climate change.
Erni has nearly two decades of experience in creating interdisciplinary arts programs. She is a native of Switzerland and is fluent in six languages.
“We are thrilled to welcome Corinne Erni to the curatorial team at the Parrish,” museum director Terrie Sultan said in a statement, noting her expertise in “engaging multiple, diverse audiences and fomenting interdisciplinary collaborations.”
Asked about what type of project she would like to tackle first, Erni told artnet News: “I’m already immersed in the recurring project, Artists Choose Artists, a survey of the richness and diversity of artistic talent in the East End.” The show opens October 30. The exhibition involves 21 artists working in all media, and in various stages of their careers, from the firmly established jurors to a very diverse group of selected artists.
Said Erni: “It is total immersion into my new community, as I am meeting everyone for the first time. Longer term I’d like to create a platform, some kind of a lab to facilitate collaborations between local and international artists as well as practitioners of different disciplines at the Parrish.”
Erni said she is “passionate about the exploration of creative processes that transcend boundaries between disciplines but also between art and its audiences…I hope to expand these concepts and establish the Parrish as an ever-stronger voice in this global community.”
She got her start at the New Museum in 2010 as project manager and later became senior producer of Ideas City, the biannual arts festival that focus on art and culture’s role in the future vitality of cities. She remains co-director of ARTPORT, since its founding a decade ago. Key projects include artist interventions with Olafur Eliasson at the United Nations Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen and Mexico, and “Cool Stories for When the Planet Gets Hot,” a biennial competition for short videos on global warming.
Earlier, Erni co-curated and produced three contemporary arts and culture festivals in New York City. For example, Extremely Hungary was a year-long contemporary Hungarian arts festival in 2009-10 in New York and Washington, DC.
Parrish director Sultan told artnet News via email, that the special projects curator is “envisioned as a catalyst for energized thinking, both within the Museum and throughout the community.” Sultan added that developing cross disciplinary and collaborative projects and programs that create fresh approaches to our work is “central to the mission and core values” of the museum.
