The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York, will present the 11th annual Award for Curatorial Excellence to Catherine David. On April 16 David will formally receive the award from renowned photographer Jeff Wall at a gala dinner.
Each year a panel of leading critics, curators, art experts and CCS Bard alumni select a curator who has shown dedication and new thinking in the field of exhibition making. David was noted for her most recent collaborations between institutions in the Arab world and the art world, which are looked upon as particularly important for our time. Her highly acclaimed and controversial projects, Contemporary Arab Representations, encouraged an invaluable exchange between these different spheres.
David now operates as an independent curator, however began her career as a curator at the National Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in the 1980s. She was artistic director of Documenta X, and former director of Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. She has presented important persepctives through seminars, publications, and performances and has also taught at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Past recipients of the award include Harald Szeemann (1998), Marcia Tucker (1999), Kasper König (2000), Paul Schimmel (2001), Suzanne Ghez (2002), Kynaston McShine (2003), Walter Hopps (2004), Kathy Halbreich and Mari Carmen Ramírez (2005), Lynne Cooke and Vasif Kortun (2006), and Alanna Heiss (2007).
