Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative

Written by Ben Ake

The Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative will identify and support a network of curators and artists from South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa in a comprehensive five-year program involving curatorial residencies, acquisitions for the Guggenheim’s collection, international touring exhibitions, and far-reaching educational activities.

The Guggenheim will select and invite one curator from each of the regions to participate in overlapping two-year residencies in New York, during which the chosen curator will work in concert with Guggenheim staff to identify and select new artworks that reflect a range of the region’s most salient cultural practices and intellectual discourses.

Works selected for the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative will be presented in traveling exhibitions, each of which will be inaugurated at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and will enter the museum’s permanent collection. Each exhibition will then travel to its respective focus region and conclude its tour in a city elsewhere in the world. In all, three exhibitions will travel to three venues for a total of nine presentations. Each exhibition will be accompanied by a dynamic and customized suite of audience-driven educational opportunities for the public, both at the exhibition venues and online.

Curatorial direction will be provided under the guidance of the New York–based Guggenheim curatorial team of Deputy Director and Chief Curator Nancy Spector and Director of Curatorial Affairs Joan Young. Additional curatorial staff members will provide expertise and oversight throughout the project.

PHASE ONE: SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

The first exhibition, focusing on works from South and Southeast Asia, will travel to two venues following the inaugural exhibition in New York during the winter of 2013, with Singapore and Hong Kong under consideration as possible destinations.

June Yap has been selected as the Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, South and Southeast Asia, by a committee of five esteemed experts in South and Southeast Asian art. She recently began a two-year residency at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, where she will be curating the first exhibition in the initiative, focusing on the artistic practices and cultural traditions of South and Southeast Asia. View June Yap's biography.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Patrick Flores
Professor, Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines

Kwok Kian Chow
Senior Advisor to the Board and CEO, National Art Gallery, Singapore

Alexandra Munroe
Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Sandhini Poddar
Associate Curator, Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Kavita Singh
Associate Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

PHASES TWO AND THREE: LATIN AMERICA AND
THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

The exhibition locations, opening dates, regional curators, and advisory committees for phases two and three will be announced at a later date.