Hasta La Ideas

Curator and critic Maria Lind, is the fourth recipient of the Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement, a biennial prize awarded by the Menil Collection in Houston to early- to mid- career curators who have made significant contributions to the field of contemporary art. Stockholm-born Lind, 42, is director of the graduate program at the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies and the former director of the International Artist Studio Program in Sweden (Iaspis) and Kunstverein Munchen. She receives a $15,000 stipend and will deliver a public lecture at the Menil on March 13.

“The judges and I were impressed by the fact that Maria comes to the field from many different perspectives and posts—a major international collecting museum, a renowned residency program, and most recently an academic program dedicated to curatorial practice,” said Franklin Sirmans, Menil curator of modern and contemporary art in a statement issued by the museum. “And she has worked very closely with artists in conceiving programs and projects.” Lind was selected by a three-member panel: Dia Art Foundation curator Lynne Cooke, who is also chief curator at Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid; Susanne Ghez, director of the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago; and Udo Kittelmann, director of Berlin’s Nationalgalerie.

The award was established in 2001 to honor renowned curator Walter Hopps, the founding director of the Menil who died in 2005. “To receive an award named after the curator of Marcel Duchamp‘s first museum exhibition is humbling,” said Lind. “I like to think that it means recognition for a curatorial approach and sensibility that rethinks formats while walking hand-in-hand with art and artists.”

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