Stéphane Aquin, curator of contemporary art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art (MMFA) since 1998, has been named chief curator of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian Institution’s museum of international modern and contemporary art, effective early 2015.
He will lead a department of five staff curators and one curator-at-large that is responsible for planning exhibitions and installations and overseeing a collection of nearly 12,000 objects.
During his tenure at the MMFA, Aquin has curated major exhibitions, including “Peter Doig: No Foreign Lands” (2014), “Beyond Pop Art: Tom Wesselmann” (2012), “Warhol Live: Music and Dance in Andy Warhol’s Work” (2008), “Riopelle: Canadian Artist (2006,“Global Village: The Sixties” (2003) and “Pipilotti Rist” 2000).
Born in Montreal and raised in the United States and Switzerland, Aquin earned a master’s degree in art history from the Université de Montréal in 1987 and has pursued doctoral studies in sociology at the same university.
Source: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden