The Seattle Art Fair announced that Nato Thompson will serve as the artistic director for its fourth edition, taking place this summer from August 2 to August 5. Thompson is currently the artistic director of Philadelphia Contemporary and has a robust curatorial background that includes a decade-long tenure overseeing iconic projects at Creative Time, from Kara Walker’s A Subtlety, 2014, to Pedro Reyes’s Doomocracy, 2016. He is also the author of Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life (2017) and Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century (2015).

“The Pacific Northwest has long been an incubator for fascinating cultural projects,” said Thompson. “I’m excited to collaborate with the Seattle Art Fair to curate interdisciplinary and engaging onsite projects that speak not only to an art audience, but the wider community in which they’re situated.”

Commenting on the appointment, Seattle Art Fair director Max Fishko said that “Nato’s unique experience with presenting major public art projects will bring an added layer of connectivity and interaction this year.”