Zoé Whitley facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Zoé Whitley
Born	(1979-12-30) 30 December 1979 (age 45) Washington, D.C.
Education	Swarthmore College (BA) Royal College of Art (MA) University of Central Lancashire (PhD)
Occupation	Art historian, curator, museum director
Employer	Chisenhale Gallery

Zoé Whitley (born December 30, 1979) is an American art expert and curator. A curator is someone who chooses and organizes artworks for museums or galleries. From 2020 to March 2025, Zoé Whitley was the director of the Chisenhale Gallery in London. She has also worked at famous places like the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate galleries, and the Hayward Gallery.

At the Tate galleries, she helped create a very important art show in 2017. It was called Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power. This exhibition was about how artists reacted to big changes in America. Later, she was chosen to organize the British pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, a huge international art event. Zoé Whitley is especially interested in art from Africa and by artists of African heritage.

Early Life and Education

Zoé Whitley was born in Washington, D.C., on December 30, 1979. When she was a teenager, her family moved to Los Angeles, California. In high school, she enjoyed classes about art history and making art. She remembers visiting the Getty Villa because her parents could not afford a school trip to Europe.

College Studies

Whitley went to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. There, she studied art history and French. For one of her first assignments, she wrote about a painting by Anselm Kiefer. She got great ideas for her essay from a Black security guard at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She said, "Everything that ended up in my essay... came from what he was able to share with me."

In 1999, while at Swarthmore, Whitley had an internship at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The people she worked with there suggested she become a curator.

Advanced Degrees

Following their advice, Whitley went to the Royal College of Art in London after college in 2001. She earned a master's degree in design history. Her master's project looked at how Black people were shown in Vogue magazine. She later earned a PhD from the University of Central Lancashire. She worked with British artist and curator Lubaina Himid for her PhD.

Career Highlights

Zoé Whitley began her career at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2003. For two years, she was an assistant curator in the museum's prints section. She became a full curator in 2005.

Exhibitions and Research

In 2007, she organized an exhibition called Uncomfortable Truths. This show marked 200 years since Britain stopped its slave trade. The exhibition explored how the slave trade's history appeared in modern art and design. In 2013, she left her job to start her PhD studies. As an independent curator, she also helped organize The Shadows Took Shape. This exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem focused on Afrofuturism. Afrofuturism is a cultural movement that combines African culture with science fiction and fantasy.

Working at Tate Galleries

In 2013, Whitley joined the Tate galleries. She held two curator jobs at the same time from 2013 to 2015. She worked at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, focusing on international art and modern British art. After April 2017, she mainly focused on international art for the Tate Modern collection.

With Mark Godfrey, she co-curated the 2017 exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power. This show looked at how over sixty American artists responded to the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power movement. Whitley explained that the exhibition focused on "art and artists." It included works by famous artists like Frank Bowling, Betye Saar, and Barkley L. Hendricks. ARTnews magazine called Soul of a Nation one of the most important art exhibitions of the 2010s.

Hayward Gallery and Venice Biennale

In 2019, Whitley became a senior curator at the Hayward Gallery. Her first and last exhibition there was Reverb: Sound into Art. This show featured art that used sound, by artists like Christine Sun Kim and Kahlil Joseph.

Also in 2019, Whitley was the curator for the British pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale. She organized an exhibition of sculptures, paintings, and prints by Cathy Wilkes. She was the first African American curator to organize a national pavilion at this major international art event.

Leading Chisenhale Gallery

In 2020, Zoé Whitley was appointed director of Chisenhale Gallery. During her time there, she organized exhibitions for many artists. These included Lotus L. Kang, Nikita Gale, Rindon Johnson, and Rachel Jones.

She also co-curated Elijah Pierce's America with Nancy Ireson. This was a special show about the American woodcarver Elijah Pierce. It was shown at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Later that year, she oversaw a section of the online "Frieze Viewing Room" called Possessions. This section focused on spirituality in modern art. In 2021, she joined a committee in London called the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm. This group helps make sure public monuments and street names reflect London's diverse population.

Whitley also worked on a children's book by Sharna Jackson, called Black Artists Shaping the World. This book helps young readers learn about Black artists. It won the 2022 Information Book Award from the School Library Association. Zoé Whitley left her role as director of Chisenhale Gallery in early 2025.

See also

• Women in the art history field