NEW YORK, NY.- Pace Gallery is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Beasley as the Curatorial Director of Pace Live beginning in September 2019. Based in the gallery’s new global headquarters in New York opening on September 14, 2019, Beasley will work closely with Pace’s international leadership team, led by President and CEO Marc Glimcher, as part of the gallery’s expanding curatorial department directed by Andria Hickey, Senior Director and Curator. In this newly developed position, Beasley will create a dynamic new performance program that serves as a site for innovation and responds to the diverse practices of today’s artists.

Beasley, who was previously the Curator of Media and Performance Art at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., will spearhead Pace Live—a multidisciplinary program that encompasses music, dance, film, performance, and conversation. Pace was built on a foundation of strong relationships with artists who push the boundaries of artmaking and, nearing its sixtieth anniversary in 2020, this remains central to the gallery’s experience. Programmed specifically for Pace’s new flagship space, Pace Live—occupying a 150-seat multi-use gallery—will give artists, scholars, and other critical forces in the field the opportunity and flexibility to experiment across a range of disciplines and connect with the public in new ways. Beasley will work alongside Hickey to shape and launch the inaugural edition of Pace Live this fall.

"Performance and time-based art are now central to the art being made at this moment,” says Marc Glimcher. “As part of our strategy to bring the curatorial world into the decision-making process of how to run and program an art gallery, adding an extraordinary curator whose expertise in this area is essential for us. Mark's experience with feeling for, and understanding of, these artists is unmatched and we're so fortunate that he will be part of the Pace team."

“In recent years performance has become a priority for museum and gallery programming; what was once subcultural now demands global attention,” says Mark Beasley. “Performance art is a social form; it’s essentially an unmediated encounter that isn’t experienced through a filter or a screen. I look forward to working with Marc, Andria and the Pace team, and developing new means of support for contemporary live art in all its varied and fluid forms.”

In advance of the debut of Pace Live, Beasley will work as a consulting curator for Pace’s first solo exhibition of works by pioneering American performance, video, and installation artist Vito Acconci, opening at the gallery in London on August 27, 2019. Marking his first project with Pace, Beasley brings a wealth of curatorial knowledge on the history of performance art, in particular Acconci’s impact on the current and future narratives in the field. Entitled FAULT-LINEON-5, the exhibition will focus on Acconci’s graphic ‘activities’ from 1969 to 1973 and will feature videos and archival materials that explore the relationship between subject and object, public space and body politics, and systems of movements and semantics.

Beasley joins Pace from the Hirshhorn Museum, where he served as the Robert and Arlene Kogod Secretarial Scholar, Curator of Media and Performance Art for the past four years. During this time, he worked on a number of notable exhibitions with contemporary artists such as Yoko Ono, Kim Gordon, Tino Sehgal, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Arthur Jafa, Frances Stark, and Laurie Anderson, among others. Previously, he also held curatorial positions at the ICA and the British Council in London, as well as Creative Time and Performa in New York. While at Performa, he programmed and commissioned a series of vocal concerts and artists’ projects for Performa 13, including A Fantastic World Superimposed on Reality, an experimental music festival co-curated with artist Mike Kelley . Working as a consulting curator, he also organized a performance program in conjunction with the retrospective exhibition of Mike Kelley at MoMA PS1 in New York, which featured works by Michael Smith, X-TG, Kim Gordon, and Jutta Koether. Additionally, he also served as a consultant to The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage in Philadelphia and has written for a number of periodicals and artists catalogues. Beasley completed a Masters in Curating at the Royal College of Art, United Kingdom and a Fine Art Doctorate at Reading University, United Kingdom.