Hauser & Wirth, a gallery with 19 locations across the world, in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Spain, Monaco, and Hong Kong, has announced the appointment of Ingrid Schaffner as its curatorial senior director.
Ingrid Schaffner. Photo: Bryan Conley/Carnegie Museum of Art.
Ms. Schaffner has been the Curator at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa since 2020, where she oversaw the organization’s permanent collection, exhibitions, residency program, publications, and research. Prior to her work at Chinati, Ms. Schaffner served as the curator of the 57th Carnegie International, which was held at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh in 2018. She also served as Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia from 2000 to 2015, where she organized significant exhibitions while also working to increase the museum’s attendance numbers as well as the diversity and popularity of its curatorial program.
Beyond her curatorial work, Ms. Schaffner has authored more than 20 books and over one hundred articles, reviews, and features about contemporary art and her curatorial practice. Her art criticism have been published in Artforum, Art in America, Parkett, and Frieze, and she has contributed to exhibition catalogs for an array of artists, including Marlene Dumas, Josiah McElheny, and Bruce Nauman.
In a statement to ARTnews, Stacen Berg, partner and Executive Director of Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles, said, “We’re thrilled that Ingrid is joining Hauser & Wirth as Curatorial Senior Director, bringing her experience and expertise as a curator and writer, her noted talent for collaborating closely with artists, and her very special sensibility to the gallery.”
Ms. Schaffner will be based in Los Angeles, which is home to one of the six galleries Hauser & Wirth maintains in the U.S. Her hiring is in line with Hauser & Wirth’s tradition of recruiting curators out of nonprofits and museums, the most prominent of which was perhaps Paul Schimmel’s hiring away from Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Ms. Schaffner joins the curatorial team following the recent additions of Tanya Barson (formerly of the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art) in London and Kate Fowle (formerly the director of MoMA PS1) in New York.
