The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi has selected Dr Valerie Hillings as the first Director of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
In her new role, Dr Hillings will guide the museum’s strategic development, manage its launch exhibitions and set up its public programmes. The institution forms a key part of the Saadiyat Cultural District, joining existing venues such as Louvre Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum, Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi and teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi.
Dr Hillings maintains a longstanding professional connection with the project. From 2009 until 2018, she worked as Curator and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project. During that time, she collaborated with local culture officials on collection acquisition strategies, early programming and building plans. She also spent five years working on the curatorial team at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Most recently, Dr Hillings served as Director of the North Carolina Museum of Art from 2018. During her leadership in the US, the museum added around 400 pieces to its collection, redeveloped its permanent galleries and doubled its annual attendance to 1.2 million visitors. She earned a PhD and MA in Art History and Archaeology from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, following an AB in Art History from Duke University.
Dr Valerie Hillings said: “I am honoured to return to Abu Dhabi to complete the once-in-a-lifetime journey of founding and opening Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a museum developed in the United Arab Emirates by colleagues from both the region and around the world. 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 through the lens of art from the 1960s to our time.”
The Frank Gehry-designed structure will provide 30 galleries across 11,600 square metres of internal display space, alongside 23,000 square metres of outdoor exhibition areas focused on art from the 1960s to the present day.
