The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston announced Wednesday that it has selected Nora Burnett Abrams747 live, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, as its next director.
Abrams succeeds Jill Medvedow, who is stepping down at the end of March. (Her departure had been announced in 2023.) In her 26-year-tenure as ICA director, Medvedow, 70, led its transformation from a small exhibition space with 10,000 to 20,000 visitors a year to a nationally recognized collecting institution that drew more than 300,000 visitors in 2022-23.
She spearheaded its expansion into a larger building, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, that opened in 2006 and helped spur redevelopment of Boston’s waterfront. She also led the creation of ICA Watershed, a seasonal exhibition space in a former factory in East Boston, across Boston Harbor, which opened in 2018.
At the Denver museum, Abrams, 46, rose through the curatorial ranks for a decade before being appointed director, in 2019. She will begin in her new post on May 1. She inherits a museum on strong financial footing, with a budget of $18.7 million and an endowment of $65.4 million.
“Nora’s proven herself in Denver to be a super collaborative, empathetic, responsible leader with a real commitment to civic life and audience engagement,” Steven D. Corkin, co-chair of the ICA board and part of the search committee, said in an interview. “She deepened the MCA Denver’s role as a catalyst in the community,” he added, citing Abrams’s opening of the MCA’s second space, in a 1926 theater in Denver’s Northside neighborhood. That project has parallels to the ICA Watershed.
ImageThe Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston building.Credit...Chuck ChoiWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.
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