Susan Cross has been appointed to the new position of Director of Curatorial Affairs at MASS MoCA following a nationwide search.
Cross has a longstanding history and commitment to the museum, serving as Senior Curator and recently as Interim Director of Visual Arts. Coming to MASS MoCA from The Guggenheim Museum (New York), Susan joined MASS MoCA six years after the museum opened its doors, and is the museum’s longest-serving and senior-most curator.
In this role, Cross leads the museum’s curatorial vision and strategy, overseeing the development and implementation of innovative exhibitions and programs that engage diverse audiences and uphold the creative freedom of artists, while supporting the museum’s curatorial, studios and fabrication teams to advance the museum’s mission in close collaboration with the museum’s Director.
“Susan brings an extraordinary breadth of experience to this position,” states Kristy Edmunds, Director of MASS MoCA. “Her curatorial practice — shaped through decades of exhibition-making, artist partnerships, institutional leadership, and deep engagement with contemporary art — is matched by her thoughtful approach to building teams and stewarding long-range curatorial strategies and aspirations. Susan has been tremendous in her contributions to MASS MoCA’s legacy and in the forward momentum she is generating for our vision ahead. She brings the qualities that define remarkable and steadfast leadership to the position as Director of Curatorial Affairs.”
“We are in a particularly exciting moment of transformation,” adds Cross, “and I am excited to take on this larger institutional role at MASS MoCA after years of contributing to the museum’s growth. I am looking forward to working closely with Kristy to shape the ambitious vision for MASS MoCA’s next chapter, which includes committing to a future dedicated to sustainability, collaboration, and maintaining our long held commitment to being artist-centered and community-grounded.”
At MASS MoCA, Cross has curated over 40 exhibitions, including career-defining surveys of the work of Alex Da Corte, Spencer Finch, and Cauleen Smith; major large-scale commissions by Katharina Grosse and Liz Glynn; the first solo museum exhibitions of artists such as Sarah Crowner and Allison Janae Hamilton, and noteworthy group exhibitions ranging from Ceramics in the Expanded Field to The Workers which probed currents in the field and the greater sociopolitical landscape. She has developed over 70 new commissions and published over 20 catalogues and monographs.
Cross is the curator of the upcoming group exhibition Technologies of Relation on view at MASS MoCA beginning February 21, 2026.
For more information, please contact:
Jennifer Falk
Director of Communications and Content
MASS MoCA
press@massmoca.org
Download the full press release here.