SAINT LOUIS, MO.- Lisa Melandri, executive director of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM), announced today the appointment of New York-based curator of contemporary art Jeffrey Uslip as CAM’s new chief curator, concluding a nationwide search.

“I am thrilled to welcome Jeffrey Uslip as the new head of CAM’s curatorial program,” said Melandri. “Throughout his career, Jeffrey has dedicated himself to exhibiting a full and varied range of artistic practices as well as artists at different stages in their careers. We had the honor of working together at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. His commitment to collaboration, scholarship, and community engagement is a perfect fit with CAM and will help us grow in new and dynamic ways.”

At CAM Uslip will present an expansive series of exhibitions, including acclaimed artist Kelley Walker’s first career survey in America; a solo project with Jesse Howard, one of Missouri’s key self-taught artists; and a survey exhibition with Los Angeles-based artist Joe Goode, his first museum survey outside of California. In September 2014, Uslip will organize a solo exhibition with Texas-based artist Mark Flood, who, for over twenty years, has developed a signature approach that questions our cultural vernacular.

Uslip, who begins his position in February, said, “I am incredibly honored and excited to join the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. CAM has forged an important and unique path in the world of contemporary art—presenting groundbreaking artists, helping to launch careers, and providing a forum for the incredible talent that is in the region. I admire the diverse perspectives the Museum shares as well as the scholarship it contributes to the larger art world.”

Since 2010 Uslip has served as curator-at-large of the Santa Monica Museum of Art, where he organized a number of solo exhibitions, including Joyce Pensato: I KILLED KENNY, on view at CAM January 24–April 13, 2014; Michael Queenland: Rudy’s Ramp of Remainders; and Agnes Denes: Body Prints, Philosophical Drawings, and Map Projections, 1969–1978, as well as emerging project room exhibitions such as Samira Yamin: We Will Not Fail and Kianja Strobert: Nothing To Do But Keep Going.

Uslip has organized exhibitions for PS1/MoMA; Artists Space; Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; California State University, Los Angeles; and LAXART, Los Angeles. He has lectured at the Yale University School of Art. Uslip is a PhD candidate at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, specializing in modern and contemporary art and the history of photography.

Uslip’s appointment fills the vacancy left in September by Dominic Molon, who was appointed the Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum).