Guggenheim Abu Dhabi appoints Dr. Valerie Hillings as inaugural director

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has appointed Dr. Valerie Hillings as its inaugural director, a role that puts her back at the centre of a project she has been involved with for over a decade.

Hillings isn't new to Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Between 2009 and 2018, she worked as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's Curator and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs on the project, collaborating directly with Abu Dhabi's culture department on collection strategy and acquisitions, pre-opening programming and the museum's Frank Gehry-designed building. Before that, she spent five years on the Guggenheim's curatorial team in New York.

Since 2018, she has served as Director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, where she led a reimagining of the permanent collection galleries, added roughly 400 works to the collection, and oversaw a doubling of annual attendance to 1.2 million visitors. She holds a PhD and MA in Art History and Archaeology from NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, and an AB in Art History from Duke University, with a specialisation in modern and contemporary art.

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is located within Saadiyat Cultural District, alongside the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum, Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi and teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi. As Director and CEO, Hillings will lead the museum's strategic direction, oversee its inaugural exhibitions and programming, and guide its progress toward opening — an institution intended, in the museum's own description, to be "rooted in Abu Dhabi and connected to the world."

Reflecting on the appointment, Hillings said:

"I am honoured to return to Abu Dhabi to complete the once-in-a-lifetime journey of founding and opening Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a museum developed in the United Arab Emirates by colleagues from both the region and around the world. I look forward to welcoming local and global audiences to the magnificent Frank Gehry-designed building and inviting them to explore points of interconnection and unique stories through the lens of art from the 1960s to our time."

Once complete, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will house 30 galleries across 11,600 square metres of interior exhibition space, along with a further 23,000 square metres of outdoor exhibition areas, making it one of the largest platforms globally dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Through its collection, exhibitions, artist commissions, research initiatives and public programming, the museum is expected to support Abu Dhabi's role as a hub for artistic innovation and cultural exchange, with a focus on art from the 1960s to the present day.