Stephanie Rosenthal

Stephanie Rosenthal is the Director of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project, overseeing its artistic vision and positioning it as a global platform rooted in the region.

She has over two decades of leadership shaping visitor-oriented exhibitions across Europe, Asia, Latin America, the US, and Australia. Her PhD on American painting of the 1950s–60s provided rigorous training in research and curatorial methodology. Her practice has since expanded to transcultural approaches, performance, dance, and participatory formats which now define her exhibition-making. She believes every visitor journey should be a carefully choreographed, multisensory experience connecting artistic content with the wider institution.

Encounters with First Nations people have profoundly shaped by curatorial perspectives. While she does not represent these voices, she is committed to create platforms for multiple perspectives within institutions.

Stephanie also explores how digital tools and AI can support participatory practices while addressing their ethical and cultural challenges.

From 2018–2022, she was Director of the Gropius Bau, Berlin, repositioning it as a site of dialogue, experimentation, and care-centered curating. From 2007–2017, she served as Chief Curator at the Hayward Gallery, London, foregrounding performance, dance, and global art histories. In 2016, she was Artistic Director of the Biennale of Sydney, shaped by migration, translation, resistance, and dialogue with First Nations practices.

She has served on advisory boards such as ifa (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relation), gaining experience in consensus-building across diverse institutional contexts.