The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) announces Jamillah James as its new curator. James joins ICA LA after serving as Assistant Curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, where she organized exhibitions and programs at Art + Practice, an arts and social services foundation in Leimert Park established by artist Mark Bradford. James’s appointment marks the first hire after ICA LA announced in May its identity change (formerly the Santa Monica Museum of Art) and relocation to the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles. James began her position with ICA LA on August 1.
 
“We are forming the ICA LA team by seeking strong and diverse perspectives that unite around common ideas. Jamillah brings incredible diligence, depth, and acuity to her exhibitions,” says Elsa Longhauser, ICA LA Executive Director. “She champions the values that ICA LA holds in highest regard—critique of the familiar and empathy with the different.”
 
Since 2014, James has organized the Los Angeles solo institutional debuts of painter Njideka Akunyili Crosby, conceptual artist Alex Da Corte, and multidisciplinary artist Simone Leigh (opening September 17, 2016 at the Hammer Museum). She also garnered critical praise for A Shape That Stands Up—an ambitious group show that featured work by Kevin Beasley, Robert Colescott, Carroll Dunham, Jamian Juliano-Villani, and Amy Sillman, as well as Selections from the Brockman Gallery Archives, an exhibition that explored Leimert Park’s legendary Brockman Gallery and its work with such seminal black artists as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, and Noah Purifoy. James co-organized the Hammer’s presentation of Charles Gaines’s Gridwork 1974–1989; and assisted Hammer Senior Curator Anne Ellegood on John Outterbridge: Rag Man, and Chief Curator Connie Butler on Mark Bradford: Scorched Earth.
 
“I am thrilled to join the ICA LA at this critical moment of transformation. I look forward to working closely with the institution to build a dynamic curatorial program that continues its longstanding commitment to experimentation, and places artists and communities in meaningful dialogue,” says James.
 
Before her tenure at the Hammer, James was a curatorial fellow at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York where she organized Brothers and Sisters, a survey show that paired pieces from the permanent collection with paintings by Beauford Delaney. In addition, she collaborated with curators on the production of Fore, the fourth installment of The Studio Museum’s series of emerging artist exhibitions. James also held a curatorial fellowship at the Queens Museum, New York, where she co-organized the 2010 Queens International biennial. She has been an independent curator of exhibitions, performances, and screenings in Baltimore, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. Her writing has been featured in publications by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), The Studio Museum, and in the International Review of African American Art. James is a visiting lecturer and critic at numerous art schools and institutions throughout the country, including ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena and Rhode Island School of Design.
 
ABOUT THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LOS ANGELES
Founded in 1984 by Abby Sher as the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA), the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is the only non-collecting museum in Southern California and one of few kunsthalles in the United States. ICA LA will open in 2017 at a new location on East 7th Street in the Downtown Arts District. wHY, under the direction of founder Kulapat Yantrasast, is overseeing the design of ICA LA’s expansive new galleries, education annex, café, and garden. ICA LA’s mission is to support art that sparks the pleasure of discovery and challenges the way we see and experience the world, ourselves, and each other.
 
ICA LA builds on the distinguished history of the Santa Monica Museum of Art, which hosted seminal exhibitions of work by Michael Asher, Urs Fischer, Mary Kelly, Daniel J. Martinez, Raymond Pettibon, William Pope.L, and Mickalene Thomas. During its thirty-year history, SMMoA worked with more than 300 artists, welcomed one million visitors, served 100,000 students, and forged 100 community partnerships.

ICA LA Board of Directors: Laura Donnelley, President; Randi Malkin Steinberger, Vice President; Geoffrey Anenberg; Yuval Bar-Zemer; Vera Campbell; Barbara Dunn; Charles Gaines; Cary Jones; Bruce Samuels, MD; Jennifer Schwab.

ICA LA Artist Advisory Council: Amy Adler, Cindy Bernard, Sam Durant, Bart Exposito, Morgan Fisher, Andrea Fraser, Charles Gaines, Todd Gray, Michael Ned Holte, Ashley Hunt, Kris Kuramitsu, Thomas Lawson, Sharon Lockhart, Rodney McMillian, Yong Soon Min, Ruben Ochoa, Laura Owens, Henry Taylor.

For more information, visit: theicala.org.