Storm King Art Center, of Windsor, New York, has appointed Nora Lawrence artistic director and chief curator. Lawrence, who has served as a curator at the outdoor sculpture center for ten years, will be the first to occupy the newly created role of artistic director. She will assume her new dual roles in January 2022, overseeing the museum’s curatorial program, collection, acquisitions, site-specific commissions, temporary exhibitions, publications, and archives. David R. Collens, who has served as director since 1974, will become director emeritus, in which capacity he will collaborate with Lawrence and Storm King president John P. Stern in support of curatorial projects. Collens will additionally remain an ex officio member of the institution’s board of trustees.

Lawrence joined the institution in 2011 and has since been instrumental in bringing new artists to Storm King. Among her accomplishments there to date are the establishment in 2013 of the Outlooks program, which invites an emerging or midcareer artist to create a site-specific work for the institution. In 2015, Lawrence and Storm King’s education and public programs team in collaboration with Shandaken Projects initiated the museum’s first artist residency. Among the recent exhibitions and projects Lawrence has developed are “Indicators: Artists on Climate Change” (2018); “Mark Dion: Follies” (2019); “Kiki Smith river light” (2020); “Rashid Johnson: The Crisis” (2021); and Sarah Sze’s permanent installation Fallen Sky, 2021.

“This is a pivotal moment for the institution,” noted Stern. “Over the past several years the scope of Storm King’s curatorial program has broadened in exciting ways. We have broken ground with new commissions and acquisitions and cultivated relationships with artists from diverse practices and backgrounds.” Stern went on to laud Collens for his efforts over four-plus decades, crediting him with shaping the institution before turning his attention to Lawrence, saying, “We are thrilled that Nora, a driving force behind our ambitious curatorial programming, will rise into this newly created role. We value her deep commitment to artists and thoughtful understanding of sculpture in dialogue with landscape.”

“No place is like Storm King and no job could be like this one—the possibilities that Storm King affords artists and cultural practitioners are boundless,” Lawrence said. “Working with artists to realize their visionary, singular projects and programs is extremely meaningful to me, and I am constantly inspired by the approaches artists take to our site and history. There is so much exciting work in our collective future.”