NEW YORK, NY.- Creative Time, New York’s leading public art organization, is pleased to announce the appointment of Kathryn McKinney as the non-profit’s first Head of Storytelling.
McKinney comes to Creative Time from A Blade of Grass, where she served as Head of Content and Communications. McKinney has over a decade of experience leading and advising arts organizations in public relations, marketing, and content strategies designed for global campaigns and hyper-local audiences. Her extensive background working within the fields of arts and culture makes her an apt candidate to communicate the nuanced, technical, and radical ideas of the artists with which Creative Time collaborates.
“We are excited to bring on Kathryn McKinney as Head of Storytelling. Kathryn brings a breadth and depth of experience to the organization that will allow us to innovate and experiment with the role of communication. This newly created role highlights the importance of language and narrative in all the work that we do. It is an opportunity to think expansively about how we tell the story behind our projects—about the artists, collaborators, and advisors that we work with, and also the larger public that we serve.” said Creative Time Executive Director Justine Ludwig.
Within the newly minted position, McKinney will apply her extensive experience in communications to help shape and drive the organization’s public-facing communication, working collaboratively with Creative Time leadership to establish engaging, responsive, and informative texts in support of the organization’s mission and programmatic vision. McKinney will play a key role in crafting Creative Time’s overall narrative that connects the organization’s past, present, and future.
“Narrative and creative expression are fundamental to how humans interpret and understand the world; artists therefore—particularly those engaging the public—represent some of the greatest potential we have in shifting paradigms and progressive world-building. I'm honored to have joined Creative Time, which has been doing this work for approaching a half-century, and where, with new leadership and curatorial vision, we are poised to help move artists to their rightful place at the forefront of our most urgent conversations and collective understanding,” said Creative Time Head of Storytelling Kathryn McKinney.
Prior to joining Creative Time, Kathryn excelled as both the Head of Content and Communications and the Co-Editor-In-Chief at A Blade of Grass Magazine, where she increased online readership by 154% and developed a streaming and broadcast partnership with WNET’s ALL ARTS to provide a platform for artist’s short documentaries. Beforehand, Kathryn served as the Director of Public Relations for Lehmann Maupin, where she directed profile building campaigns for artists such as Cecilia Vicuña and McArthur Binion and oversaw the gallery’s public relations as it expanded its program in South Korea and China, as well as the opening of its new West 24th Street flagship gallery in 2018. .
Kathryn McKinney directs Creative Time’s public-facing communications with a focus on narratives that help bridge artists with the broader public. She holds a MA in Arts Administration from Baruch College and a BA in Art History from San Francisco State University. In 2020, she was a finalist for the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences Marlow Prize in Arts Leadership for her thesis, Forms and Applications of Socially Engaged Art.
