Philadelphia Museum of Art’s modern and contemporary department gets big boost

A fresh pair of acquisitions, a newly endowed position, and a recently appointed chief are boosting the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s focus on modern and contemporary art.

Eleanor Nairne, formerly senior curator at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, has been named curator and head of the Art Museum’s newly reconfigured department of modern and contemporary art. The London-born curator, the daughter of two art historians, hopes to take up her Philadelphia post sometime in February.

Nairne, 36, said she was attracted by the city and what she called a “pivotal moment” for the museum — “having Sasha [Suda] as a new director and a new curatorial structure in place.”

“I also wanted to be in a place where change is welcome, and it feels like there is a real mandate for change.”

Separately, the museum announced that PMA trustees Lisa S. Roberts and David W. Seltzer have endowed a new position within the department: a full-time curator of modern and contemporary design. The spot is expected to be filled after Nairne’s arrival.

Additionally, the Art Museum recently acquired two new works, both by Philadelphia artists: Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s Be Alarmed: The Black Americana Epic, Movement I - The Visions, a 2014 installation of photographs, videos, and objects; and Alex Da Corte’s ROY G BIV, a video work projected onto a large cube.

Neither work is currently on display.

The museum’s search for a new head of modern and contemporary art aimed to find “a leader that will be inspiring, and truly, I think she’s that person,” said Carlos Basualdo, the museum’s deputy director and chief curator, who called Nairne “adventurous but thoughtful, very precise, very respected in the field.”

At the Barbican, “the institution had certain limitations, and she was able to work with those and push them through and did remarkable work there,” Basualdo said.

Nairne curated several shows at the Barbican: “Alice Neel: Hot Off The Griddle” (2023), “Soheila Sokhanvari: Rebel Rebel” (2022), “Lee Krasner: Living Colour” (2019); and “Basquiat: Boom for Real” (2017). She was previously curator of the Artangel Collection at Tate, for which she organized more than 30 exhibitions and installations across the U.K., and comes from a family of art professionals that includes her mother, art historian Lisa Tickner, and her father, one-time National Portrait Gallery director Sandy Nairne.

Eleanor Nairne arrives in Philadelphia amid a newly reconfigured curatorial structure established in September.

“Departments were not really talking to each other sufficiently,” said Basualdo. “And when Sasha asked me to become the chief curator, it was even more evident that although there were conversations and some very good conversations, they were mostly [a result of] personal affinity. But there wasn’t a structure, a channel by which those conversations could be articulated.”

Now, the South Asian and East Asia art departments have become Asian Art; the European painting and sculpture and European decorative art departments became European Art; and the modern specialists in American and European decorative arts and European painting are now part of the modern and contemporary art department.

In all, eight departments became six, and no jobs were eliminated in the reorganization, a museum spokesperson said.

“At the center of all this is trying to develop a more collaborative approach among curators,” says Basualdo, “but also between curators and other people in the museum — conservators, marketing — basically trying to create a different culture in terms of collaboration.”

Nairne is interested in extending those conversations beyond the Art Museum’s walls. The job brings “the potential to be collaborating with the Institute of Contemporary Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, of course, the Barnes down the road, the Calder when it opens, not to mention the universities, which are an important part of the ecosystem.”

Even before her new post arose as a possibility, she says she “felt very excited about the city at this time in its history and also its richness of culture.”

In considering the evolution of the Art Museum’s work, “for me, the place it always needs to begin with is Philadelphia because it has such a rich and particular history. For example, my personal interest is in post-war art, but perhaps that means thinking about the place of textiles in Philadelphia because of the city’s manufacturing past.”

The job, Nairne says, is “thinking about the stories you want to tell.”

The Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Admission is $14-$30, free for visitors age 18 and under. philamuseum.org