Abu Dhabi has appointed Dr Valerie Hillings as the first director of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, marking a significant step towards the opening of the long-awaited museum on Saadiyat Island.
The announcement was made by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, which is overseeing the development of Saadiyat Cultural District. The district already includes Louvre Abu Dhabi and will eventually bring together the Zayed National Museum, the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi and teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, creating one of the most ambitious concentrations of cultural institutions in the world.
Hillings is no stranger to the project. Between 2009 and 2018, she served as Curator and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, where she worked on acquisitions, collection strategy, pre-opening programming and the development of Frank Gehry’s building.
She returns to Abu Dhabi after six years as Director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, where she led a major reinstallation of the permanent collection, oversaw the acquisition of around 400 works and presided over a substantial increase in attendance, which reached 1.2 million visitors annually.
The appointment places an experienced Guggenheim insider at the helm of a museum that has been in development for more than a decade. Hillings will be responsible for shaping the institution’s curatorial direction, overseeing its inaugural exhibitions and establishing its public and research programmes.
In a statement, she described the role as “a once-in-a-lifetime journey”. She said she looked forward to welcoming audiences to Gehry’s building and exploring “points of interconnection and unique stories through the lens of art from the 1960s to our time.”
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is intended to focus on modern and contemporary art from the 1960s onwards, with a collection that spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography, moving image and new media. The museum’s curatorial approach is expected to emphasise artistic exchanges and networks across regions rather than following a strictly chronological or geographic narrative.
The building, designed by Frank Gehry, occupies a prominent waterfront site on Saadiyat Island. Inspired by forms associated with the Gulf region, it will contain 30 galleries across 11,600 square metres of interior exhibition space, with a further 23,000 square metres of outdoor exhibition areas distributed across terraces and conical structures surrounding the museum.
The project is a collaboration between the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. While an opening date has not yet been announced, the appointment of an inaugural director suggests that preparations are entering a more advanced phase as Abu Dhabi continues its effort to position itself as a major international centre for modern and contemporary art.
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opens its doors 11/ December 2026