CAMBRIDGE, MASS.- The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts announced Kate McNamara as our new John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Director.

"What excites me most about this moment is the opportunity to deepen the Carpenter Center’s role as a leading contemporary art space and artistic laboratory. Through new residencies, expanded exhibitions, publishing collaborations, and partnerships with our university and neighboring communities, we are building an ecosystem where artists, students, scholars, and local residents encounter art as a living, shared practice. I’m grateful to continue this work and to help guide the Carpenter into its next chapter."

In addition to directing the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts for the past year, Kate M. McNamara is a curator, educator, and author. She is the founder of ODD-KIN, a contemporary art space in Rhode Island, and previously served as Executive and Creative Director of My HomeCourt, a nonprofit initiative revitalizing city parks through collaborations with contemporary artists. She co-founded the Warhol-funded regional Interlace Grant Fund and is a Visiting Critic at the Rhode Island School of Design and Sotheby’s Institute of Art.

Previously, McNamara was Curator-at-Large and Interim Director at Providence College Galleries, and from 2015–2019 served as Director of Galleries and Exhibitions at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. She also served as Director and Chief Curator at the Boston University Art Galleries. She co-founded Cleopatra’s, a former alternative project space in Brooklyn, and held curatorial roles at MoMA PS1 and Participant, Inc.

McNamara holds an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and a BA in Curatorial Studies from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Free and open to the public, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is the center for contemporary art and artists at Harvard University. Through exhibitions, new commissions, public events, publications, and residencies, the Carpenter Center is dedicated to artist-centered programming and to building a vibrant community around contemporary art. This community is defined by an ethos of experimentation, diverse perspectives, and making connections across disciplines and fields. Housed within Le Corbusier’s only building in North America, the Carpenter Center’s projects are enriched by the educational mission of the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, and the cultural resources of a large research university.