Johanna Burton, director of The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, will be leaving to take over the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. The unusual move to the much smaller institution follows the departure of Zoë Ryan, who headed the ICA from 2020 to 2024 and moved to helm LA’s Hammer Museum.
Burton’s joined MOCA in 2021. During her time at the institution, she reinstated its annual gala in 2022, which, having been paused over the pandemic, has raised a yearly $3 million. She also facilitated the launch of the biennial Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize, which awards USD 100,000 to artists working at the intersection of art, architecture and environmental justice. Its inaugural winners were Julian Charrière and Cecilia Vicuña.
Burton was previously executive director of the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio and has held leadership roles at New York’s New Museum, the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, and the Whitney.
‘ICA Philadelphia has always been a beacon for what’s next – prioritising the emergent, the risk-taking, and the rigorously experimental,’ Burton said in a statement. ‘In many ways, this appointment returns me to the kind of institution that first shaped my curatorial and academic sensibilities, a focused but deeply influential center for artistic innovation within a pedagogical setting.’
Burton will start her new role from 1 November.
