Claudia Schmuckli joined the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) in September 2016 as the institution’s first Curator-in-Charge of Contemporary Art and Programming. A native of Switzerland, Germany, Schmuckli was most recently Director and Chief Curator of the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, where her projects included exhibitions on Chantal Ackerman, Amy Sillman and Leonardo Drew. In her first year at FAMSF, she has brought new work by international artists including Urs Fischer and Sarah Lucas to the Bay Area; here, Schmuckli provides insight into her vision, program and forthcoming projects.
When FAMSF Director Max Hollein invited you to consider a curatorial post in San Francisco, what were your initial thoughts?
I felt that the situation was brimming with potential. The local art ecology was thriving in the wake of SFMOMA’s completion, the development of Minnesota Street Project and the opening of several new galleries. I knew the Fine Arts Museums would be able to undertake a thought-provoking and critically relevant program by building on the histories and identities of the de Young and the Legion. It was an exciting prospect that I was only too happy to embrace!
