Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Announces Kristy Edmunds as Next Director

The Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) announced today that Kristy Edmunds has been appointed as its new Director, following a 10-month international search and a unanimous decision by the Board. Edmunds comes to MASS MoCA from UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA), where she has served as the Executive and Artistic Director since 2011.

Previously, she was the Artistic Director for the Melbourne International Arts Festival, served for several years as the Head of the School of Performing Arts and Deputy Dean at the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne, and was the founding Executive and Artistic Director of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) and the TBA Festival (Time Based Art) in Portland, Oregon. She also served as the inaugural Consulting Artistic Director for the Park Avenue Armory in New York.

“We are thrilled to welcome Kristy to North Adams and MASS MoCA; Kristy brings an exceptional record of artistic vision, community engagement, and leadership to MASS MoCA,” said Timur Galen, chair of the MASS MoCA Foundation Board of Trustees.

“Among a deep and diverse pool of very strong candidates, Kristy, from the outset of the selection process, stood out as someone with interests, experience and aspirations that are deeply aligned with ours. From her role as a founding director, to the broad range of multidisciplinary projects she has undertaken and presented in different venues and environments around the world, to her evident care and commitment to artists, her staff, and colleagues, we are truly delighted that Kristy will be joining us to lead MASS MoCA into the future.”

“I have been fascinated with MASS MoCA from the second I learned about it decades ago,” said Edmunds. “What it took to make it possible is extraordinary. What it feels like to experience art in this place is unlike anywhere else. There’s an aliveness charging through the campus itself that manages to honor the past while being in the vivid present, and I have never been there without feeling that I discovered something astonishing. A whole creative ecosystem exists in North Adams to realize the vision of artists—from inception to monumentally-scaled completion, and everything in between—while also enhancing the economic benefits to the community. It is a tremendous honor to be joining MASS MoCA and supporting this outstanding team of people who maintain a creative pipeline of possibility in one place.”

Kristy Edmunds is expected to begin her new position at MASS MoCA in October.