The Tamesis
SITE Santa Fe appoints independent curator Ekow Eshun as the organizer of the next SITE Santa Fe International. The 13th edition of the exhibition is expected to open in the summer of 2027.
London-based Eshun, a former director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, has recently been praised for organizing a series of high-profile exhibitions across the UK. In 2022, he curated “In the Black Fantastic” at London’s Hayward Gallery, which featured 11 artists from the African diaspora, including Nick Cave, Kara Walker, Wangechi Mutu and Ellen Gallagher.
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He then held “The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reimagining the Black Image” at London’s National Portrait Gallery, which featured the work of more than 20 artists whose work rethinks the representation of black people in art history. The exhibition opens in February 2024, moves to the Philadelphia Museum of Art later that year, and travels to the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh in 2025.
“I think he will bring new energy and a new vision to international competition,” SITE executive director Louis Grachos told us art news In a recent interview, he noted that he was deeply impressed by Eshun’s curation of “In the Black Fantastic,” describing the exhibition as “so fresh, vibrant, and experiential.”
He then invited Eshun to come to SITE Santa Fe as part of programming related to the 2023 Deborah Roberts exhibition at the museum. “It really sparked a conversation for me around organizing the next international arts festival,” Grajos said. “In a way, we’ve been thinking about him for two years and it felt like now was the perfect time to bring him in… Hopefully he’ll present a show that’s going to be very fresh for us in North America.”
As well as working for SITE International, Eshun curates the 10th British Art Exhibition, which opens in September and will tour five UK cities. Eshun says that while the latter exhibition is specifically aimed at Britain and British artists, the international exhibition is more global in scope. art news He approached both exhibitions in a similar spirit.
“In both exhibitions, I was thinking about the questions that artists raise through their work,” he said. “I’m interested in how artists can make us rethink questions of history, place, memory, identity, existence, belonging—all these big, fluid, subtle questions. I’m interested in creating exhibitions that allow us to see ourselves in unexpected ways, to find ways to bring us closer to each other, to refract the world around us in ways we never expected.”
Grachos relaunched the biennale last year. The last edition of SITE International was curated by Cecilia Alemani, and the scope of the exhibition extended far beyond the walls of SITE to a variety of other partner institutions around Santa Fe. “One of the things that excites me so much is the scale of the work,” Eshun said. “The International Competition is an event that energizes Santa Fe in an unusual and exciting way. I love the way it transforms a city into a place of constant discovery.”
“I think this kind of collaboration and sharing of resources is very important today,” Grachos said. “If you ask what is the most important contribution that SITE can make to the community, it is internationalization, because it is an opportunity to interact with the community and that magical balance of interaction with the international discourse.”
Like Alemany’s version, Eshon’s exhibit will focus in part on New Mexico’s history — “this part of the world is filled with complex histories that make us rich,” as Grachos puts it.
“I have always been impressed by SITE’s location and the geography and history of the Southwest,” Eshun said. “I’m also struck by SITE because it’s a space for thinking seriously and broadly about contemporary art, and it’s an extraordinary place where different histories, different people, places, movements, art movements come together or converge.”
While Eshun hasn’t officially started working on the theme and artist list for the upcoming The International, he said he has a “long ongoing list of artists” that he’s still adding names to.
“At some point, let’s see where it takes me,” he said. “Artists are very good at seeing what’s beyond the horizon, and I think Santa Fe and the Southwest is a broad, exciting place to be.”
