Philippe Vergne has been appointed artistic director and chief curator of the Miami contemporary art museum, The Bass. He will start the role in October, working alongside executive director Silvia Karman Cubiña.
Vergne has been director of the Museu Serralves in Porto since 2019. Prior to this, he held several senior leadership roles in museums, including as director of Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art from 2014 to 2018, director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York from 2008 to 2014, senior curator and deputy director at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis from 2005 to 2008, and director of the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Marseille from 1994 to 1997.
The position has been newly created at a transformative time for the museum. In March, The Bass reopened its satellite gallery, The Rotunda, following nearly two years of renovations. In April, it announced a major expansion project to be designed by Los Angeles-based architecture firm Johnston Marklee and supported by a $20.1m municipal bond issued by Miami Beach in 2022.
