HOUSTON, TX.- The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston announces the hire of Rebecca Matalon as Curator. Matalon comes to CAMH following a five-year stint at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, California. She will begin work at CAMH in January 2019.
The addition fulfills a directive set forth in the Museum’s strategic plan of expanding community outreach through exhibitions. Matalon joins an existing curatorial team of Dean Daderko (Curator) and Patricia Restrepo (Exhibitions Manager and Assistant Curator).
In addition to fulfilling institutional initiatives, the hire also maintains and aligns with a proud history at CAMH of promoting and cultivating a powerful feminist perspective within its curatorial practice. Matalon will be in Houston and introduced to a group of CAMH supporters at the Museum’s annual event, Another Great Night in November, on Wednesday, November 7, 2018. The long-standing ladies-only soirée was established as the counterpoint to The Museum of Fine Art, Houston’s all-men’s event taking place on the same evening.
“I am delighted to welcome Rebecca to CAMH,” said Interim Director Christina Brungardt. “Her passion and expertise will energize and complement the vibrant and diverse arts community of Houston in a similar manner as her projects in Los Angeles have done there. She is an asset to CAMH’s mission of creating exhibitions that contribute to and define the dialogue surrounding the cultural and social impact of contemporary art.”
An Assistant Curator at MOCA, Matalon organized exhibitions including Tongues Untied (2015), Mickalene Thomas: Do I Look Like a Lady? (2016), Rick Owens: Furniture (2016), Fischli & Weiss: Der Lauf Der Dinge (2017), Welcome to the Dollhouse (2018), and Décor: Barbara Bloom, Andrea Fraser, Louise Lawler (2018), as well as served on the organizing teams of many other traveling and permanent collection exhibitions. She is currently co-organizing Zoe Leonard: Survey (2018), a major mid-career retrospective of the work of Zoe Leonard, which debuted at The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, New York, and travels to The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA later this month.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be moving from one historic and forward-thinking art institution to another,” Matalon said. “CAMH’s rich and longstanding commitment to supporting experimental arts and artists is unparalleled. To join an institution that has, for 70 years, championed the art of our time and played a vital role within the Houston community is a tremendous honor and privilege. I greatly look forward to working with such esteemed colleagues and becoming a part of the city’s diverse and well-established art scene, which is renown for its world-class institutions and strong community support for the arts.”
In addition to Matalon’s work at MOCA, she is Co-Founder and Curator at JOAN, a not-for-profit exhibition space in Los Angeles that is dedicated to presenting the work of emerging, under-recognized, and women artists. Here she has organized solo exhibitions with Nevine Mahmoud (2015), Aura Rosenberg (2016, with Adam Marnie), Roni Shneior (2017), and Harry Dodge (2018, with Adam Marnie), as well as the group exhibition SYLVIA BATAILLE (2015, with Adam Marnie).
Matalon received her BA in Art History from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 2007, and her MA in Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Square from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 2013.
