NEW YORK, NY.- Today Frieze announces Toby Kamps (Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Menil Collection, Houston) as the new curator of Spotlight. The section at Frieze Masters and Frieze New York for solo presentations of 20th-century art, Spotlight features positions beyond the Western tradition, surveys of under-recognized artists and rarely seen work by iconic figures of the avant-garde. Toby Kamps’ first edition of Spotlight will be at Frieze Masters 2016. Frieze fairs are sponsored by Deutsche Bank.

Revealing foundational moments in art through pioneering figures from across the world, Spotlight has been a celebrated feature at Frieze Masters since its launch in 2012 and saw its first New York edition in 2015. Kamps follows international curators Adriano Pedrosa (Artistic Director, MASP, São Paulo) who led the section 2012–15 and most recently Clara M Kim. Curator of Spotlight at the upcoming edition of Frieze New York, 5–8 May 2016, Kim has been newly appointed as Daskalopoulos Senior Curator, International Art (Africa, Asia & Middle East) at Tate Modern (London). Kamps will select and advise galleries for the 2016 edition of Spotlight at Frieze Masters in London, 6–9 October.

Victoria Siddall, (Director, Frieze fairs) said, ‘Spotlight has become a real highlight of Frieze Masters and now also Frieze New York in recent years, thanks to the curatorial overview of Adriano Pedrosa and then Clara M Kim. It has been fantastic to hear of the institutional and private sales it has generated, as well as the museum exhibitions it has led to. I am excited to see how Toby Kamps develops the section and its potential for discovery. Toby brings with him a vast range of academic and museum experience, devising solo and thematic shows at many of the world’s most influential institutions, and it is an honour to welcome him to the Frieze team.’

Toby Kamps said, ‘Spotlight has been a revelation for me—a place for discovering alternative and little-known histories of international 20th-century art. I’m excited to build on Adriano Pedrosa’s and Clara M Kim’s wonderful efforts to expand our understanding of the myriad ways in which artists around the world work and think. I’m looking forward to bringing new attention to artists outside of the mainstream and to rarely seen bodies of work by established figures in order to tell a fuller story of art in a globalized age.

As Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Menil Collection, Kamps has organized solo exhibitions by artists including Claes Oldenburg, Ellsworth Kelly, Vanessa Beecroft, Danny Lyon, Wols (Wolfgang Schulze) and Torolab, a Tijuana design collective. His thematic surveys include ‘Silence’; ‘The Old, Weird America’ (awarded best traveling exhibition nationally by the US sections of the International Association of Art Critics); and, with a curatorial team, ‘Baja to Vancouver: The West Coast and Contemporary Art’.

Previous positions include Curator and Department Head, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Director, Institute of Contemporary Art, Maine College of Art, Portland; and Senior Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. A graduate of Bowdoin College, the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art, and the Getty Museum Leadership Institute, Kamps has written on contemporary art and artists for numerous exhibition catalogues and magazines.

Opening alongside the contemporary fair Frieze London, Frieze Masters will take place in The Regent’s Park, London from 6–9 October 2016, with the Preview on 5 October. Together the two fairs offer an unmissable opportunity to view, experience and acquire art. Frieze Masters is sponsored by Deutsche Bank for the fifth consecutive year, continuing a shared commitment to discovery.