NEW YORK, NY.- Holly Hotchner, Director of the Museum of Arts & Design (MAD), today announced the appointment of Barbara Bloemink, Ph.D., as the Museum’s Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs. In her new position, Dr. Bloemink will oversee MAD’s expanding exhibitions, education and publications programs. This is the first in a series of appointments—including the addition of permanent and adjunct curatorial positions—that the Museum will make in the coming year as it prepares for the opening of its new home at Two Columbus Circle. Dr. Bloemink will join the Museum at the end of January 2007.

“Barbara’s curatorial and administrative expertise further strengthens the Museum’s senior leadership and will play an integral role in the continued development and expansion of MAD’s programmatic offerings,” said Holly Hotchner, Director of the Museum of Arts & Design. “Barbara joins us at an exciting time of transformation and growth, and I look forward to working with her as we chart a new course for our museum.”

Dr. Bloemink comes to the Museum of Arts & Design from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, (Smithsonian Institution), where she has served as the Curatorial Director since 2002. Prior to this, she was the Managing Director of the Guggenheim Hermitage and the Guggenheim Las Vegas museums, the Director and Chief Curator of the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia and the originating Director and Chief Curator of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design.

“I am delighted to be joining the Museum of Arts & Design at such a critical moment in the institution’s history,” said Dr. Bloemink. “I look forward to assisting my highly respected colleagues in guiding the curatorial vision of the Museum, where contemporary art, craft and design are all fully integrated within both exhibitions and museum departments. The Museum of Arts & Design represents a uniquely 21st-century view of the artistic process that considers all creative work through a multifaceted exploration of ideas, materials, and techniques.”

In her four-year tenure at the Cooper-Hewitt, Dr. Bloemink helped bolster the overall attendance, managed the institution’s exhibition program, re-formulated the acquisitions strategy, and expanded the range, diversity, and level of exhibition scholarship. Past shows organized by Dr. Bloemink at the Cooper-Hewitt include Yinka Shonibare Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection and Design ≠ Art: Functional Objects from Donald Judd to Rachel Whiteread, as well as the newly opened 2006 National Design Triennial: Design Life Now, which she co-curated. Dr. Bloemink has organized over eighty museum exhibitions and written numerous catalogues, books and essays on modern and contemporary art and design, including Comic Release: Negotiating Identity for a New Generation; ReWriting History: Contemporary African-American Art, and Michael Lucero, an exhibition which traveled to the American Craft Museum in 1996-7.

Dr. Bloemink received her Ph.D. in International Contemporary Art from Yale University, her M.A. in 17th–19th-century painting and sculpture from the Institute of Fine Arts (NYU), and her B.A. from Stanford University.