Valerie Hillings Appointed Inaugural Director of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi
17Aug. 5, 2026
TheGuggenheim Abu Dhabi, which recentlyannounced that it will open December 11, has namedValerie Hillingsas its inaugural director. Hillings joins the institution from Raleigh’s North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMAA), where she hasserved as directorsince 2018. Her appointment marks her return toGuggenheim Abu Dhabi, where she was curator and associate director of curatorial affairs from 2009 to 2018.
“I am honored to return to Abu Dhabi to complete the once-in-a-lifetime journey of founding and opening Guggenheim Abu Dhabi,” said Hillings in a statement. “I look forward to welcoming local and global audiences to the magnificent Frank Gehry-designed building and inviting them to explore points of interconnection and unique stories.”
While at NCMA, Hillings doubled the institution’s audience to 1.2 million and added four hundred works to its collection, increasing the representation of women, minority, LGBTQIA+, and local artists. In her earlier role as part of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project staff, which she took up two years before construction on the Frank Gehry–designed building began, she led a team of curators in developing a strategy for originating the museum’s collection.
She previously spent five years in a curatorial role at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. In her fourteen years at the Guggenheim, Hillings organized more than fifteen exhibitions on four continents, including “The Creative Act: Performance, Process, Presence” (2017); “ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s–60s” (2014); “Picturing America: Photorealism in the 1970s” (2009); and “RUSSIA!” (2005–2006). She holds a Ph.D. and an MA in art history and archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, as well as an AB in art history from Duke University, where she focused on modern and contemporary art.