Former MoMA PS1 Chief Curator Joins UCCA

The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing announced on April 22 that Peter Eleey will serve as curator-at-large for UCCA from his base in New York. He will oversee the development of exhibitions, programs, and curatorial initiatives with the opening of UCCA Edge in Shanghai later this year.

Eleey joined New York’s MoMA PS1 in 2010 and assumed the position of chief curator in 2016, until his resignation at the end of 2020 amid the Covid-19 crisis. During his tenure, Eleey curated more than 40 exhibitions, including major surveys of Huma Bhabha, George Kuchar, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, and Maria Lassnig, and group exhibitions such as “Theatre of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991–2011” (2019–20), co-curated with Ruba Katrib, which showcased over 300 works addressing on the Gulf Wars, and “September 11” (2011), which marked the tenth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. 

In 2018 Eleey was the subject of a discrimination complaint from editor and curator Nikki Columbus, who claimed that PS1 rescinded a job offer to her as a performance art curator after she disclosed she had recently given birth. The claim was settled in 2019 for an undisclosed sum.

Throughout his career, Eleey has worked with a number of leading Chinese artists, including Cai Guo-Qiang, for his public art project Light Cycle (2003) at Central Park; and Zheng Guogu, for his solo exhibition “Visionary Transformation” (2019) at MoMA PS1. In 2017, he was part of the curatorial team for the exhibition “.com/cn,” a collaboration between MoMA PS1 and the K11 Art Foundation in Hong Kong, which examined a variety of artistic responses to the different technological ecosystems in China and the rest of the world.

UCCA director Philip Tinari commented in the press release, “His [Eleey’s] role in shaping MoMA PS1’s leading program and expanding its capacity over the past decade makes him an ideal partner for UCCA during this next phase of our development. His remarkable curatorial vision, and especially his sensitivity to artists and audiences, will be a great asset to UCCA as we work to build a global museum for contemporary China.”

Eleey said of his new role, “I am thrilled to join UCCA and its terrific team during this exciting period of the museum’s growth. I look forward to working together with the Tinari and the team to engage new audiences and build on UCCA’s pioneering legacy of vibrant programming.”

Chloe Morrissey is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.

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