Parrish Art Museum Names Corinne Erni as New Curator of Special Projects

The Parrish Art Museum has announced the appointment of Corinne Erni as the new Curator of Special Projects, effective September 1, 2016. The creative force behind the New Museum of New York’s IDEAS CITY—a ground-breaking, collaborative arts initiative and internationally recognized  biennial—and the co-founder of a seminal global curatorial platform on art and climate change, ARTPORT_making waves, Erni brings to the Parrish nearly 20 years of experience creating game-changing art programs that engage communities locally while also resonating globally.

Erni replaces the current Curator of Special Projects, Andrea Grover, who begins her new position as Executive Director at Guild Hall on September 1.

“We are thrilled to welcome Corinne Erni to the curatorial team at the Parrish,” Museum Director Terrie Sultan said. “She fully understands the notion of strong local ties with a global outlook. Her high level of expertise in engaging multiple, diverse audiences and fomenting interdisciplinary collaborations will enable the Parrish to fully embrace our mission as a center for cultural engagement, an inspiration and destination for the region, the nation, and the world.”

“I am very passionate about the exploration of creative processes that transcend boundaries between disciplines but also between art and its audiences, which is why I highly value the original concepts and exhibition models of the Parrish Art Museum,” Erni says. “Relying on my deep-rooted relationships and extensive networks within the contemporary art community I hope to expand these concepts and establish the Parrish as an ever stronger voice in this global community, building on its success in connecting the East End of Long Island to the national and international art world.”

Erni began her tenure at the New Museum in 2010 as project manager and ultimately senior producer (2015) of IDEAS CITY, an arts festival that galvanized the creative community both on the Lower East Side and in cities worldwide. The new brand initiative—featuring high quality, multidisciplinary art programs and conferences focusing on art and culture as being essential to the future vitality of cities—was presented as biennial festival in New York City (2011, 2013, and 2015), and as global conferences in Istanbul (2012) and São Paulo (2013). For IDEAS CITY, which  attracted hundreds of thousands of new audiences in New York and abroad, Erni created ground-breaking  program concepts with over 150 events at each biennial; curated site-specific exhibitions, installations, performances, talks, panels, and think tanks; and secured key partnerships with cultural, civic, and government organizations.

Signature projects included Flash:Light, Let Us Make Cake, the first commissioned artist projections mapping on the New Museum façade, a collaboration with Nuit Blanche New York;  A Performative Conference in Nine Acts, a night-long performance marathon at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, addressing gentrification; and After Hours: Murals on the Bowery, a collaboration with Art Production Fund, where international artists were invited to create paintings on the metal roller shutters of Bowery retail shops.

For the global curatorial platform ARTPORT_making waves, which Erni co-founded in 2006 and has remained co-director though 2016, she commissioned, curated and produced public art projects, exhibitions, artist residencies, educational programs, and publications with a focus on art and climate change that bring together the arts, science, and politics. Key projects include ARTPORT_Satellite—artist interventions with George Steinmann, Barthélémy Toguo, and Olafur Eliasson at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Paris, 2015; (Re-) Cycles of Paradise, a  traveling exhibition on gender and climate change at United Nations Climate Change Conferences, Copenhagen and Mexico, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), 2009-2012; and Cool Stories for When the Planet Gets Hot, a biennial competition for short art videos on global warming with  screenings of finalists’ editions and educational programs worldwide that began in 2009.

A native of Switzerland, Erni is fluent in six languages. She was educated in Milan and New York and began her career in fashion design in Switzerland and New York before turning her attention to interdisciplinary arts programming.