Atlanta Contemporary has named Lauren Haynes’s as its new executive director, effective March 16. She replaces interim ED Everett Long, who had been in the position since last summer.
Haynes brings a wealth of curatorial experience to her new role, from institutions throughout the United States. She was most recently vice president of arts & culture and head curator at the Trust for Governors Island. Governors Island, in New York Harbor, has robust arts programming, including exhibitions, site-specific installations, residencies, and an art fair.
Before that, Haynes worked at the Queens Museum; Duke University’s Nasher Museum in Durham, N.C.; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary in Bentonville, Ark.; and the Studio Museum in Harlem. She is also on the board of the Association of Art Museum Curators.
In various roles over the past two decades, Haynes has curated exhibitions of work by artists like Tracey Rose, Lyle Ashton Harris, Georgia O’Keeffe, Alma Thomas, and Stanley Whitney.
“Atlanta Contemporary’s dedication to championing artists, fostering creative experimentation, and ensuring that diverse perspectives are represented resonates strongly with my own values and practice,” Haynes said in a statement.
She will hopefully bring an element of stability to the institution, a non-collecting art center that was founded in 1973 as an artists’ collective. The interim executive director, Everett Long (then the board president), stepped up last summer when Floyd Hall resigned after just 18 months in the role.
Atlanta Contemporary’s six current exhibitions are on view through May 17. They include solo shows of work by Brittany Adeline King, Jean Shon, and Natalie Rose Eddings; a group show featuring five Georgia-based artists who work with books; “Unbound Narratives,” focusing on artists who work with language; and “Images of Black Liberation from the Johnson Publishing Company Archives,” a collaboration with the Getty Research Center and Spelman College in Atlanta.
