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Zoé Whitley (born 30 December 1979) is an American art historian and curator who has been director of
Chisenhale Gallery Chisenhale Gallery is a non-profit contemporary art gallery based in London's East End. Background The organisation focuses on a programme of commissioned exhibitions, events, performances and talks. The gallery occupies the ground level of a ...
since 2020. Based in London, she has held curatorial positions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate galleries, and the Hayward Gallery. At the Tate galleries, Whitley co-curated the 2017 exhibition '' Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power'', which was described by '' ARTnews'' as one of the most important art exhibitions of the 2010s. Soon after she was chosen to organise the
British pavilion British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English ...
at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Whitley's research interests include contemporary artists and art practices from Africa and the
African diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...
.


Early life and education

Zoé Whitley was born on 30 December 1979 in Washington, D.C. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, when she was a teenager. In high school, she took classes on art history and
studio art An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, including fine art – especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Art schools can offer elementary, secondary, post-seco ...
. She recalled taking a trip to the Getty Villa after her parents could not afford to send her on a school trip to Europe. Whitley attended
Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
in Pennsylvania, where she studied art history and French. For her first assignment on contemporary art, Whitley recounted basing her essay on the thoughts that a black security guard working at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
gave her about ''Nigredo'' (1984), a painting by
Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan hav ...
: "Everything that ended up in my essay, which my art-history professor said was really excellent, came from what he was able to share with me." While attending Swarthmore, in 1999, Whitley completed an internship at the costume and textiles department of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There, department head
Sharon Takeda Sharon ( he, שָׁרוֹן ''Šārôn'' "plain") is a given name as well as an Israeli surname. In English-speaking areas, Sharon is now predominantly a feminine given name. However, historically it was also used as a masculine given name. In I ...
and her colleague, Kaye Spilker, recommended Whitley become a curator. On their advice, Whitley studied at the Royal College of Art in London, where she earned a master's degree in design history. Her master's thesis examined black representation in '' Vogue'' magazine. She later earned a PhD from the
University of Central Lancashire , mottoeng = "From the Earth to the Sun" , established = as Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledgere-established 1992 (University status granted) , type = Public , chancellor ...
, where her work was supervised by British artist and curator Lubaina Himid.


Career

Whitley started her career at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2003. For two years, Whitley worked as an assistant curator in the museum's prints section. She then became a curator in 2005. In 2007, she organised ''Uncomfortable Truths'', an exhibition that commemorated the bicentenary of the
abolition Abolition refers to the act of putting an end to something by law, and may refer to: * Abolitionism, abolition of slavery * Abolition of the death penalty, also called capital punishment * Abolition of monarchy *Abolition of nuclear weapons *Abol ...
of the British slave trade. The exhibition examined traces of the slave trade in contemporary art and design. In 2013, she stepped down from her position to begin a PhD at the University of Central Lancashire. As an independent curator, she co-curated the Afrofuturism-focused exhibition ''The Shadows Took Shape'' at the
Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...
. In 2013, Whitley joined the Tate galleries. Between 2013 and 2015, she held dual curatorial positions at Tate Britain and Tate Modern as curator in international art and curator of contemporary British art, respectively. After April 2017, the focus of her work became international art and the collection of Tate Modern. With
Mark Godfrey Mark Godfrey is an American para-alpine skier. He represented the United States at the 1988 Winter Paralympics The 1988 Winter Paralympic Games (german: Paralympische Winterspiele 1988) were the fourth Winter Paralympics, held again in Innsb ...
, she co-curated the 2017 exhibition '' Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power'', which examined the response of more than sixty artists in America to the Civil Rights Movement and the subsequent Black Power movement. The exhibition, according to Whitley, emphasised "art and artists, rather than a social history of art and ephemera," and includes works by Frank Bowling,
Betye Saar Betye Irene Saar (born July 30, 1926) is an African-American artist known for her work in the medium of assemblage. Saar is a visual storyteller and an accomplished printmaker. Saar was a part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, which eng ...
, and
Barkley L. Hendricks Barkley L. Hendricks (April 16, 1945 – April 18, 2017) was a contemporary American painter who made pioneering contributions to Black portraiture and conceptualism. While he worked in a variety of media and genres throughout his career (from ph ...
. '' ARTnews'' described ''Soul of a Nation'' as one of the most important art exhibitions of the 2010s. The Association of Art Museum Curators recognised Whitley in 2020 for the exhibition. In 2019, Whitley became senior curator of the Hayward Gallery. She was curator of the
British pavilion British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English ...
at the 58th Venice Biennale later that year, which featured an exhibition of sculptural installations, paintings, and prints by Cathy Wilkes. Whitley is the first African American curator to organise a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Her first and last exhibition at the Hayward was ''Reverb: Sound into Art'', an exhibition that featured sound art by
Christine Sun Kim Christine Sun Kim (born 1980) is an American sound artist based in Berlin. Working predominantly in drawing, performance, and video, Kim's practice considers how sound operates in society. Musical notation, written language, American Sign Langua ...
,
Kahlil Joseph Kahlil Joseph (pronounced ''"Kha-leel"'') is an American film, television and stage actor and teacher of performing arts. He has worked extensively in the United States and India. Joseph is based in Los Angeles. Early life Joseph was born in ...
, and Oliver Beer. In 2020, Whitley was appointed director of
Chisenhale Gallery Chisenhale Gallery is a non-profit contemporary art gallery based in London's East End. Background The organisation focuses on a programme of commissioned exhibitions, events, performances and talks. The gallery occupies the ground level of a ...
. With Nancy Ireson, Whitley co-curated ''Elijah Pierces America'', a retrospective of the works of American woodcarver Elijah Pierce exhibited at the Barnes Foundation. Later that year, she oversaw ''Possessions'', a section of the virtual " Frieze Viewing Room" that focuses on
spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...
in contemporary art. In 2021, she was appointed to the
Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm The Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm is an initiative established on 9 June 2020 by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to review public tributes in the British capital, including statues and other landmarks. History The commission was ...
, a committee overseeing diversity in London's public monuments and its street and building names.


Personal life

Whitley moved to London in the early 2000s.


See also

* Women in the art history field


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitley, Zoe 1979 births Living people Directors of museums in the United Kingdom Women museum directors African-American curators African-American women academics American women academics African-American academics African-American historians American women curators American curators American art historians Women art historians Historians of African art People associated with the Tate galleries People associated with the Victoria and Albert Museum People from Washington, D.C. People from Los Angeles American expatriates in the United Kingdom Swarthmore College alumni Alumni of the Royal College of Art Alumni of the University of Central Lancashire Historians from California 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women 21st-century African-American women