ICA Boston Picks MCA Denver’s Nora Burnett Abrams as Next Director

After a year-long search, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston has selected Nora Burnett Abrams as its next director. She will begin in the post on May 1, succeeding Jill Medvedow, who has directed the ICA for 26 years.

Abrams comes to the ICA after a 15-year tenure at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, where she successfully rose through the curatorial ranks, starting as an adjunct curator in 2009 and rising to the museum’s directorship in 2019. During her tenure there, she increased the museum’s endowment by 30 percent and led its expansion to a second location in the city’s Northside neighborhood. She also led the MCA Denver’s creation of a Racial Equity Plan to further the institution’s commitment to inclusivity.

As a curator, she organized more than 40 exhibitions at the museum, including “Basquiat Before Basquiat” (in 2017), a survey of Senga Nengudi’s “R.S.V.P.” sculptures (2014), a Tara Donovan retrospective (2018), and “Cowboy” (2023–24), with Miranda Lash, about the mythology of the American West. During her tenure, she also helped raise the MCA’s attendance by more than 200 percent.

“In Denver, Nora has elevated expectations for how a museum can embed its work in its community and engage audiences. She has an ambitious vision for programmatic excellence combined with cultural and civic relevance, and we look forward to bringing that vision to Boston,” Bridgitt Evans, the ICA Boston’s board co-chair who led the director search, said in a statement.

Last October, Medvedow announced she would step down from the ICA’s directorship. She was originally set to leave the role this December, but will now depart on March 31, about a month before Abrams takes the reins.

“Through its lauded exhibitions and programming, the ICA embodies the rigor, relevance, and creativity which so many in our field look to as a model,” Abrams said in a statement. “Jill’s visionary leadership has set the bar for what a contemporary art museum can be and redefined what museums can achieve through the values of openness and care.”