MONTREAL.- The Director of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MACM), Paulette Gagnon, announced the appointment of Marie Fraser as Chief Curator of the museum. Ms. Fraser has extensive experience in museological research, art history and exhibition curating.

Since 2007, she has been a professor in the Department of Art History at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where she lectures in its museum studies program. She earned a PhD in art history from the Université de Montréal with a dissertation on storytelling and narrative performance in contemporary art. She was guest curator for the 10th edition of Montréal’s Mois de la Photo in 2007, which focused on the theme of narrative explorations. She also edited one of the first major studies to be published on narrative explorations in the realm of the image and new media.

As guest curator at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, she organized raconte-moi / tell me (2005–2006) in collaboration with Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain, and Le ludique (2001–2003), which was also presented at the Musée d’Art Moderne Lille Métropole, in France. She has curated around twenty other exhibitions, some of which, held in urban spaces, have examined the boundaries between art and reality, and redefined the role of the public in the production and dissemination of artworks.

Marc DeSerres, Chair of the MACM Board of Trustees, expressed his delight with Ms. Fraser’s appointment, which began December 11, 2009.

Ms. Fraser will take up her duties full-time starting June 1, 2010, and on an occasional basis prior to that, as of this coming January 7.