The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi took another significant step toward its December 11 opening, naming Valerie Hillings as the institution’s inaugural director.
In choosing Hillings, the Guggenheim tapped a trusted name for the high-profile appointment. She spent five years on the Guggenheim’s staff in New York before joining the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project in 2008 as curator and associate director of curatorial affairs. She worked alongside the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi through 2018, laying the groundwork for its acquisition strategy and curatorial focus on art from West Asia, North Africa, and South Asia from 1960 onward.
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“I am honored to return to Abu Dhabi to complete the once-in-a-lifetime journey of founding and opening Guggenheim Abu Dhabi,” Hillings said in a statement. “I look forward to welcoming local and global audiences to the magnificent Frank Gehry-designed building and inviting them to explore points of interconnection and unique stories.”
Hillings returns to Abu Dhabi after an eight-year tenure as director of the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) in Raleigh. During her tenure, the museum’s attendance grew to 1.2 million annual visitors, and she oversaw the rehang of its permanent collection for the first time in more than a decade, under the title “The People’s Collection, Reimagined.” She also expanded NCMA’s collection by roughly 400 works, including adding the museum’s first Pablo Picasso painting.
Hillings holds a doctorate in art history from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and a degree in art history from Duke University. In 2014, she curated “Zero: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s–60s” at the Guggenheim New York, a landmark survey of the experimental postwar German group Zero.
Upon its opening, Hillings will oversee the largest branch in the Guggenheim’s four-country museum network and the most eagerly awaited addition to the Saadiyat Cultural District. Plans for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi were announced in 2006, and the ensuing two decades of delays and controversies have brought the project to completion at a reported cost of roughly $1 billion. The museum comprises 30 galleries, spanning 11,600 square meters (124,860 square feet) of interior exhibition space and 23,000 square meters (247,570 square feet) of outdoor exhibition space.
Stephanie Rosenthal, the director of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project, wrote on LinkedIn today, “I look forward to working closely with Valerie throughout this transition, ensuring continuity as the inaugural artistic programme and institutional vision developed over these past four years come to fruition.
“My warmest congratulations to Valerie on her appointment,” she added.
The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi sits within walking distance of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017, as well as the more recently inaugurated Zayed National Museum and Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi. According to Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi, the new Guggenheim will represent “a defining moment in our cultural journey.”
The article was updated on August 4 to include a statement from Stephanie Rosenthal.