London’s Tate Modern today announced that Christine Y. Kim will serve as the inaugural Britton Family Curator-at-Large (North American Art). Kim, since 2009 a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will divide her time between Los Angeles and New York, where she will focus on focus developing Tate’s collection of North American art through new research and acquisitions. She will step into her new role in January 2022.

While at LACMA, Kim, a 2022 Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellow, worked to expand and diversify that institution’s collections, exhibitions, and programs and to foster equity and inclusion across the museum. Among recent shows she curated at the Los Angeles institution are “Black American Portraits” (2021–22); “Julie Mehretu” (2019–22), “Isaac Julien: Playtime” (2019); and “Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination” (2015–16). Prior to joining LACMA, Kim served in a curatorial role at New York’s Studio Museum in Harlem, where she coocurated with Thelma Golden the first in that museum’s pathbreaking “F” series of exhibitions, “Freestyle” (2001). She is additionally credited with placing Wangechi Mutu, Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye in their first US museum exhibitions. Kim earned her BA in art history and French from Connecticut College and her MA in American studies and critical theory from New York University.

Apart from working to expand Tate’s collection of American art through acquisitions, Kim will help curate exhibitions and projects there. “After twelve incredible years at LACMA, I am thrilled to bring my expertise in collection-building, focusing on works of art by living artists of color, to a national and Canadian scope, to share on an expanded, global scale at Tate,” said Kim.

“Christine is a hugely talented and experienced curator, with a reputation for showcasing the incredible diversity of North American contemporary art,” said Gregor Muir, Tate’s director of collections, international art. “I’m delighted that she’ll be joining the team in this role. As an American living in the United States, Christine will also bring on-the-ground expertise to Tate’s activities in the region.”