NEW YORK, NY.- Independent Curators International announced today that on the occasion of its milestone 40-year anniversary, it will honor Michael Govan with the 2015 Leo Award. Named after early ICI supporter and legendary art dealer Leo Castelli, the Award honors extraordinary commitment to artists and pioneering contributions to the field of contemporary art. The Award will be presented to Govan at ICI’s 40th Anniversary Benefit & Auction in New York City on November 18, 2015.

For more than 25 years, Govan has been in the leadership of major art institutions in the U.S., and has played a significant part in the changing role of art museums in American life. Amid considerable transformations in the artistic and curatorial fields, and in the arts funding landscape, he has come to represent a leading force committed to the support of contemporary artists and audience engagement.

Since Govan became director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 2006, he has overseen a period of unprecedented expansion of the museum’s campus, and of its audience. He has raised LACMA’s international profile, while firmly positioning it as a cultural and civic center for Los Angeles. He set as an early priority his vision to have contemporary artists interact with the museum’s historic collections, through commissions and artist-curated exhibitions. From 1994 to 2006, Govan was President and Director of Dia Art Foundation in New York City, where he significantly enlarged the collection, and spearheaded the creation of Dia:Beacon in the Hudson Valley.

“As ICI celebrates 40 years of leadership in the field and international collaborations with curators, we are proud to recognize one of the most significant museum directors of our times” said Renaud Proch, ICI’s Executive Director. “Michael Govan’s vision reflects ICI’s mission in many ways – international in scope, supportive to artists and to curators, and focused on building institutions that connect people and fulfill the civic role of art. Since 1990, ICI has recognized with the Leo Award the contributions of pioneering individuals who foster new opportunities and supportive environments for contemporary art. This year, on this special anniversary and important milestone for ICI, we are honored to welcome Michael Govan into the ranks of the Leos.”

“It's an honor to be part of an ICI event. ICI's exhibitions and support for independent curators have helped shape the field over many years. And ICI often gives art and artists exposure ahead of the curve," states Michael Govan.

Past recipients of the Leo Award include Dimitris Daskalopoulos, Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein, Miuccia Prada, and Dasha Zhukova.

At its 40th Anniversary Benefit & Auction, ICI will present the Leo Award as well as the Agnes Gund Curatorial Award for outstanding contribution to the presentation and discourse of contemporary art.

Michael Govan joined the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as Chief Executive Officer and Wallis Annenberg Director in 2006. In this role, he oversees all activities of the museum, including art programming and the commission and installation of artist’s projects that dot the museum’s campus such as Chris Burden’s Urban Light; he has also overseen the Transformation campaign, an ambitious, multifaceted building project that is expanding, upgrading, and unifying the museum’s eight-building, twenty acre campus, most recently including the addition of the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion.

Under Govan’s leadership, the museum acquired by donation or purchase more than 10,000 works for the permanent collection; and its visitor numbers have almost doubled from 650,000 in 2006 to 1.2 million today.

From 1994 to 2006, Govan was President and Director of Dia Art Foundation in New York City, where he spearheaded the creation of the critically acclaimed, 292,000-square-foot Dia:Beacon, a museum in New York’s Hudson Valley that houses Dia’s renowned collection of art from the 1960s to the present. Dia’s collection itself nearly doubled in size during Govan’s tenure. Prior to this, he served for six years as Deputy Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, where his work extended to Guggenheim branches in New York, Venice, and Bilbao.