Zoé Whitley (born 30 December 1979) is an American art historian and curator. Between 2020 and March 2025, Whitley directed Chisenhale Gallery. Based in London, she has held curatorial positions at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

, the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

galleries, and the

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Royal ...

. At the Tate galleries, Whitley co-curated the 2017 exhibition '' Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power'', which '' ARTnews'' called one of the most important art exhibitions of the 2010s. Soon after she was chosen to organise the British pavilion at the 2019

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

. Whitley's research interests include contemporary artists and art practices from Africa and the

African diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from List of ethnic groups of Africa, people from Africa. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the native West Africa, West and Central Africans who were ...

Early life and education

Zoé Whitley was born in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, on 30 December 1979. Her family moved to

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, when she was a teenager. In high school, she took classes on

art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

and studio art. She has recalled taking a trip to the Getty Villa around the time because her parents could not afford to send her on a school trip to Europe. Whitley attended

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, where she studied art history and French. For her first assignment on

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

, Whitley recounted basing her essay on the thoughts that a Black security guard working at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

gave her about ''Nigredo'' (1984), a painting by

Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan h ...

: "Everything that ended up in my essay, which my art-history professor said was really excellent, came from what he was able to share with me." While attending Swarthmore, in 1999, Whitley completed an internship at the costume and textiles department of the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

. There, department head Sharon Takeda and her colleague, Kaye Spilker, recommended Whitley become a curator. On their advice, Whitley studied at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

in London after graduating from Swarthmore in 2001, and earned a master's degree in design history. Her master's thesis examined Black representation in '' Vogue'' magazine. She earned a PhD from the University of Central Lancashire with British artist and curator Lubaina Himid.

Career

Whitley started her career at the

in London in 2003. For two years, Whitley worked as an assistant curator in the museum's prints section. She then became a curator in 2005. In 2007, she organised ''Uncomfortable Truths'', an exhibition that commemorated the bicentenary of the

abolition Abolition refers to the act of putting an end to something by law, and may refer to: *Abolitionism, abolition of slavery *Capital punishment#Abolition of capital punishment, Abolition of the death penalty, also called capital punishment *Abolitio ...

of the British slave trade. The exhibition examined traces of the slave trade in contemporary art and design. In 2013, she stepped down from her position to begin a PhD at the University of Central Lancashire. As an independent curator, she co-curated the

Afrofuturism Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture ...

-focused exhibition ''The Shadows Took Shape'' at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Tate, 2013–2019

In 2013, Whitley joined the

galleries. Between 2013 and 2015, she held dual curatorial positions at Tate Britain and

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

as curator in international art and curator of contemporary British art, respectively. After April 2017, the focus of her work became international art and the collection of Tate Modern. With Mark Godfrey, she co-curated the 2017 exhibition '' Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power'', which examined the response of more than sixty artists in America to the Civil Rights Movement and the subsequent Black Power movement. The exhibition, according to Whitley, emphasised "art and artists, rather than a social history of art and ephemera," and includes works by Frank Bowling,

Betye Saar Betye Irene Saar (born July 30, 1926) is an American artist known for her work in the medium of Assemblage (art), assemblage. Saar is a visual storyteller and an accomplished printmaker. Saar was a part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, w ...

, and Barkley L. Hendricks. '' ARTnews'' described ''Soul of a Nation'' as one of the most important art exhibitions of the 2010s. The Association of Art Museum Curators awarded Whitley one of its 2020 Curatorial Awards for Excellence for the exhibition.

Hayward Gallery, 2019–2020

In 2019, Whitley became senior curator of the

. Her first and last exhibition at the Hayward was ''Reverb: Sound into Art'', an exhibition that featured

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary Time-based media, time-based Artistic medium, medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in Cross-genr ...

by Christine Sun Kim, Kahlil Joseph, and Oliver Beer. Also in 2019, Whitley was the curator of the British pavilion at the 58th

, which featured an exhibition of sculptural installations, paintings, and prints by Cathy Wilkes. She became the first African American curator to organize a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Chisenhale Gallery, 2020–2025

In 2020, Whitley was appointed director of Chisenhale Gallery. During her time at the space, she organized exhibitions of work by Lotus L. Kang, Nikita Gale, Rindon Johnson, Alia Farid, Benoît Pieron, and Rachel Jones, among others. With Nancy Ireson, Whitley co-curated ''Elijah Pierces America'', a retrospective of the works of American woodcarver Elijah Pierce exhibited at the Barnes Foundation in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Pennsylvania. Later that year, she oversaw ''Possessions'', a section of the virtual "

Frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

Viewing Room" that focuses on

spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...

in contemporary art. In 2021, she was appointed to the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm, a committee overseeing diversity in London's public monuments and its street and building names. Whitley worked on a children's book written by Sharna Jackson, ''Black Artists Shaping the World'', which serves as an introduction to Black artists for young audiences. The book won the 2022 Information Book Award from the School Library Association. The gallery announced in late 2024 that Whitley would leave her post as director in early 2025.

References