Mad. Sq. Art Names Brooke Kamin Rapaport New Senior Curator

The Madison Square Park Conservancy today announced the appointment of Brooke Kamin Rapaport to the position of Senior Curator. The hiring of Rapaport is part of the Park's initiative to expand and enhance its world-class program of commissioned outdoor sculpture installations by living artists. Rapaport was, most recently, an independent curator and specialist in modern and contemporary sculpture, based in New York.

"I have admired Rapaport's work for many years. Her participation on our Art Advisory Committee was instrumental in identifying several artists for exhibition in historic Madison Square Park. She will strengthen our program and contribute to the growth and stature of the exhibitions. Providing free groundbreaking art to the public is a privilege and Rapaport's deep passion for public art will propel us forward and represents an expansion of our Art Department," says Debbie Landau, President of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

In her new role at the Conservancy, Rapaport will oversee the Art Department, generating and organizing the schedule of four annual sculpture shows, overseeing publications, and establishing further development opportunities for the Conservancy. Rapaport will also present programming to the Conservancy's Board of Trustees and Art Advisory Committee.

"I have long admired Debbie Landau and her team at the Conservancy for their championing of contemporary sculpture in the public realm," Rapaport says. "This position falls directly in line with my professional interests of organizing sculpture shows, working with artists by providing the opportunity to create monumental work in an extraordinary outdoor venue, and having the public directly inspired by the projects in Madison Square Park."

As an independent curator, Rapaport most recently organized Houdini: Art and Magic (2010) and Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend (2007) at The Jewish Museum in New York. The Nevelson exhibition catalogue, published by Yale University Press, won the Henry Allen Moe Prize for Catalogues of Distinction in the Arts. As associate curator of contemporary art at The Brooklyn Museum, Rapaport planned Vital Forms: American Art and Design, 1940-1960 (2001). She is a contributing editor and regular contributor to Sculpture magazine and has written extensively on contemporary artists including Alice Aycock, Christo, Melvin Edwards and Judy Pfaff. She blogs for www.sculpture.org on sculptors' materials and process. Rapaport is a cum laude graduate of Amherst College, received her MA in art history from Rutgers University, and was a Helena Rubenstein Fellow in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Mad. Sq. Art is the free, contemporary art program of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Since 2004, Mad. Sq. Art has commissioned and presented twenty-six installations by acclaimed artists ranging in practice and media including Richard Deacon, Mark di Suvero, Bill Fontana, Antony Gormley, Tadashi Kawamata, Sol LeWitt, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Roxy Paine, Jaume Plensa, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Alison Saar, Jessica Stockholder, and Leo Villareal.

The Madison Square Park Conservancy is a public/private partnership with New York City Parks & Recreation. The Conservancy is dedicated to keeping historic Madison Square Park, in the heart of Manhattan's Flatiron District, a bright, beautiful and active public park. With more than 1.5 million visitors annually, Madison Square Park is a premier public space and cultural arts venue in New York City. For more information on the Madison Square Park Conservancy and the Mad. Sq. Art program, please visit http://madisonsquarepark.org.