Ruba Katrib


Ruba Katrib is an American curator of contemporary art. She has served as Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at MoMA PS1 since 2017. From 2012 until 2017, Katrib was Curator at SculptureCenter in New York. Prior to this post, she worked first as Assistant Curator and then as Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. She is best known for exhibitions highlighting women artists and global issues.

Early life and education

Katrib was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in Charleston, West Virginia. She is the first US-born child of Syrian immigrant parents.
Katrib holds degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. In 2002, while a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she co-founded , a residency and exhibition space.

Career

From 2007 until 2012, Katrib worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami as Assistant Curator before being named Associate Curator. Among the shows Katrib curated at MOCA were solo presentations by Cory Arcangel and Claire Fontaine, and group exhibitions including The Possibility of an Island and Convention. In 2011, she organized a symposium, “New Methods,” that looked at artist-run educational platforms in Latin America. Katrib was awarded a curatorial fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in 2010 to support research for “New Methods”.
Katrib became Curator at SculptureCenter in New York in 2012. At SculptureCenter, she curated the group exhibitions 74 million million million tons , The Eccentrics, Puddle, pothole, portal , Better Homes, and A Disagreeable Object ; and solo shows of the work of Carissa Rodriguez, Kelly Akashi, Sam Anderson, Teresa Burga, Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise, Nicola L., Charlotte Prodger, Rochelle Goldberg, Aki Sasamoto, Cosima von Bonin, Anthea Hamilton, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Magali Reus, Gabriel Sierra, Michael E. Smith, Erika Verzutti, David Douard, and Jumana Manna. With Tom Eccles she co-curated Visitors, a group exhibition of public art on Governors Island, New York in 2015.
In 2017, Katrib was named Curator at MoMA PS1. At MoMA PS1 she has curated exhibitions such as Greater New York, Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life, Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991 - 2011 , the retrospective Simone Fattal: Works and Days, and the solo shows of Edgar Heap of Birds, Karrabing Collective, Fernando Palma Rodríguez, and Julia Phillips. In 2018, Katrib curated prominent group invitational exhibition SITE Santa Fe and was a curatorial advisor for the Carnegie International. In 2021, Katrib was promoted to Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at MoMA PS1 and curated MoMA PS1's Greater New York invitational group exhibition of artists based in New York. She has served on the graduate committee at CCS Bard since 2017.
Katrib has contributed texts for a number of museum catalogues and periodicals including Art in America, Artforum, Cura Magazine, Kaleidoscope, Parkett, and Mousse. Her work is often concerned with diasporic and marginalized discourses in 21st-century artistic practices and the art world generally.

List of Exhibitions

MoMA PS1, New York, 2017 – present

Group exhibitions

  • ', 2021
  • ', co-curated with Peter Eleey, 2019
    Monographic exhibitions
  • ', 2022
  • ', 2021
  • ', 2019
  • ', 2019
  • ', 2018
  • ', 2018

    SculptureCenter, New York, 2012 – 2017

Group exhibitions

  • ', co-curated with Lawrence Abu-Hamdan, 2017
  • ', 2015
  • ', co-curated with Camille Henrot, 2014
  • ', 2013
  • , 2012

    Monographic exhibitions

  • ', 2018
  • ', 2017
  • , 2017
  • ', 2017
  • ', 2017
  • ', 2017
  • ', 2017
  • ', 2016
  • ', 2016
  • ', 2016
  • ', 2015
  • ', 2015
  • , 2015
  • ', 2015
  • ', 2015
  • ', 2015
  • , 2014
  • , 2014

    Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, 2007 – 2012

Group exhibitions

  • ', 2010
  • ', 2009
  • The Possibility of an Island, 2008
  • , 2008

    Monographic exhibitions

  • ', 2010
  • ', 2010

    Select publications

  • “Bettina: Photographs and Works by Bettina Grossman.” Aperture, 2022.
  • “Erika Verzutti: The Indiscipline of Sculpture.” KMEC Books/MASP, 2022.
  • Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life. MoMA PS1, 2021.
  • “Neïl Beloufa: People Love War Data & Travels.” After 8 Books, 2021
  • “Leidy Churchman: Crocodile.” Dancing Foxes, Hessel Museum, Bard College, 2019.
  • “Molecular Sculpture.” Art in America, 2017.
  • “New Methods.” Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, 2013.