Frieze has announced that Toby Kamps will be the new curator of its acclaimed Spotlight sections—dedicated to solo presentations by under-appreciated artists from the 20th century—across the Frieze Masters London and Frieze New York fairs.

Kamps is currently curator of modern and contemporary art at the Menil Collection, in Houston, where he has curated solo exhibitions by a wide range of artists, including Claes Oldenburg, Ellsworth Kelly, and Vanessa Beecroft.

Kamps was previously curator and department head at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, and senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. His writings on contemporary art and artists have been published in numerous exhibition catalogues and magazines.

“Spotlight has been a revelation for me—a place for discovering alternative and little-known histories of international 20th-century art, “Kamps said a in a statement. “I’m looking forward to bringing new attention to artists outside of the mainstream and to rarely seen bodies of work by established figures in order to tell a fuller story of art in a globalized age.”

Frieze Fairs director Victora Siddall.
Photo: Andrea Hamilton. Copyright of TransGlobe Publishing.

“Toby brings with him a vast range of academic and museum experience, devising solo and thematic shows at many of the world’s most influential institutions, and it is an honor to welcome him to the Frieze team,” Victoria Siddall, director of Frieze fairs, added.

Kamps’s appointment comes shortly after the announcement of the appointment of Clara M. Kim as the new Daskalopoulos Senior Curator for International Art at London’s Tate Modern—a post previously held by Jessica Morgan, now director of the Dia Art Foundation.

Clara M. Kim is the new Daskalopoulos Senior Curator at London’s Tate Modern.
Photo: instagify.com

Kim was appointed as curator of both the Frieze Masters in London and Frieze New York Spotlight sections only last year, in January 2015. Kim will still curate the Spotlight section in the upcoming edition of Frieze New York, which will take place from May 5-8, with Kamps debuting in his new post during the next Frieze Masters London, in October.