The New Museum has named the curators of its fifth triennial, set to open in 2021.
Margot Norton, a curator at the New Museum, and Jamillah James, a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, will team up to helm the downtown institution’s noted survey of emerging artists, which has been held every three years since 2009’s influential show “Younger Than Jesus.” That first Triennial helped launch the careers of millenial-age artists such as Ryan Trecartin, Cory Arcangel, and Tauba Auerbach, with subsequent iterations continuing to provide emerging artists with a springboard to wider recognition. The most recent Triennial, “Songs for Sabotage,” closed in May.
Norton joined the New Museum in 2011 as an assistant curator, was named an associate curator in 2015 and curator in 2017, and has contributed to exhibitions by artists as varied as Chris Ofili, Judith Bernstein, Sarah Charlesworth, and Ragnar Kjartansson. She’s currently prepping the museum’s Sarah Lucas show that’s set to open in September. James has been a curator at the ICA in Los Angeles since 2016, and before that worked at that city’s Hammer Museum and the Studio Museum in Harlem. While at the ICA, James has spearheaded the solo shows of artists such as Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Rafa Esparza and Alex Da Corte.
“Both Norton and James have consistently been committed to supporting and exhibiting emerging artists, and have an extraordinary track record in identifying the most interesting artists at work today,” New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni said in the press release. “I look forward to the new perspective they will bring to the New Museum Triennial, while continuing to expand its relevance and polemical thrust."