Press release

Beatrice Galilee Appointed Associate Curator of Architecture and Design in Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at Metropolitan Museum

(New York, March 3, 2014)—Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today the appointment of Beatrice Galilee as Daniel Brodsky Associate Curator of Architecture and Design, in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. She will begin work at the Museum in the spring.

“Beatrice Galilee will join the staff of our Department of Modern and Contemporary Art as it expands to embrace a more global program and mandate,” stated Mr. Campbell. “She brings to the position her strong international experience in the presentation and study of architecture and design-related work. Hers is one of two positions in the department that were endowed recently by Dan and Estrellita Brodsky. Their commitment to modern and contemporary art at the Met has been visionary, anticipating the new opportunities for programming in the Marcel Breuer-designed building on Madison Avenue that will be vacated by the Whitney Museum in 2015 and then occupied by the Met.”

According to Sheena Wagstaff, the Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of the department: “This is a new position at the Museum, and a timely appointment that will enhance a vital area of scholarship as we build the collection and plan our programming for the Breuer project. We are thrilled to welcome a curator with a reputation for her innovative approach as well as a comprehensive knowledge of the field.”

Daniel Brodsky, the Museum’s Chairman, and his wife Estrellita B. Brodsky, an art historian and specialist in Latin American Art, recently provided a generous gift to endow both new curatorships—one named for Estrellita B. Brodsky, for a specialist in Latin American Art focusing on the art of 20th- and 21st-century Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America; and the position now being filled by Ms. Galilee that is named for Daniel Brodsky and focuses on architecture and design.

Beatrice Galilee is a curator, writer, critic, and lecturer. Most recently, she was chief curator of the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Close, Closer, where she presented alternative realms of architectural and spatial practice. She was co-curator at the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale, Design is Design is Not Design, in South Korea, and the 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, City Urbanization, in China—both major city-wide exhibitions devoted to introducing new ideas and experiences to a broad public audience. She has curated a number of exhibitions and experimental design projects across Europe, and was the co-founder and director of The Gopher Hole, an exhibition and project space in London.

Educated in architecture at the University of Bath, with an MSc in architectural history from the Bartlett School of Architecture, Ms. Galilee began her career as an editor at Icon magazine, and was a contributing editor to Domus magazine from 2010 to 2013. She is an associate lecturer in the spatial practices program at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. She has written widely on contemporary architecture and design, has been invited to sit on a number of international juries, and is a regular speaker at events, symposia, and conferences.

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March 3, 2014

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