Associate Curator of Collection and Exhibitions, Abu Dhabi Project

Guggenheim curator since 2004 

Valerie Hillings earned her MA and Ph.D. in art history from Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where she concentrated on modern and postwar art with concentrations in Russian art and Western European art in the 1950s and 1960s. Since joining the curatorial staff in 2004, she has curated and cocurated exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Deutsche Guggenheim, and the Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum, including Russia!; Hanne Darboven's Homage A Picasso; Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection; and Picturing America: Photorealism in the 1970s. She has also curated presentations of works from the Guggenheim collection for venues in Europe and Australia. Most recently, she and Susan Davidson, Senior Curator, Collections & Exhibitions, cocurated The Guggenheim: The Making of a Museum, which was the first exhibition organized by the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi. Hillings is part of the curatorial team developing exhibitions and collection for the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

In addition to her Guggenheim projects, Hillings has published and publicly lectured on various topics in post-World War II and Russian art in Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. She served on the jury for the Kandinsky Prize for Russian contemporary art in 2007, 2008, and 2009.