Three New Board Appointments, Two New Staff Appointments and the launch of The American Friends of the ICA

Stefan Kalmár, Director of the ICA and Donald A. Moore, Chair of the ICA Council announce today the election of three new Council members: Delya Allakhverdova, Maria Sukkar and Wolfgang Tillmans; the launch of The American Friends of the ICA with Ronnie Sassoon, Eleanor Cayre, Liam Gillick and Thea Westreich Wagner & Ethan Wagner as its founding members; Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey as Head of Design and Daryoush Haj-Najafi as Head of Communications joining recently appointed Katharine Stout as Deputy Director and Richard Birkett as Chief Curator.

Kalmár remarks: ‘These new appointments align with my ambition to make the ICA a truly progressive and radical contemporary arts organisation ready for the 21st century. Seventy years on, this need is felt more acutely than ever.’

Delya Allakhverdova graduated in 1995 from the Moscow Institute of Foreign Affairs with a degree in law, and in 2006 was a co-founder of the Contemporary City Foundation, an experimental space for artists and curators in Moscow. Allakhverdova sits on the Russia and Eastern Europe Acquisitions Committee of Tate.

Maria Sukkar is part of the International Council at Tate and sits on the Middle Eastern Acquisition Committee and the Photography Acquisition Committee. She is also a Trustee of Showroom and sits on various committees and councils of the British Museum, the Delfina Foundation and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, among other institutions.

Wolfgang Tillmans studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design, England from 1990 to 1992. In 2000, Tillmans was the first non-British artist to receive the Turner Prize. Tillmans’s work has earned critical acclaim internationally and been exhibited around the world since the early 1990s he has currently exhibitions at the Tate Modern and the Beyeler Foundation.

Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey joins the ICA as Head of Design. Bertolotti-Bailey is a graphic designer and publisher, co-founder and editor of the journal Dot Dot Dot (2000–2010), and one half of the graphic design duo Dexter Sinister along with David Reinfurt. In 2006, Dexter Sinister established a workshop and bookstore of the same name in New York, and have since explored aspects of contemporary publishing in diverse contexts.

Commenting on his appointment, Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey said: ‘This is a rare opportunity for me to be intrinsically involved in recalibrating a complex institution as part of its core team. This is made even more exceptional by the fact that the ICA's history is so close to my own background and interests. The immediate challenge is to take what is primarily an analogue legacy and update it for our digital context.’

Daryoush Haj-Najafi joins the ICA as Head of Communications. Haj-Najafi was previously Editor at VICE Style, has written columns for China's Modern Weekly, thelondonpaper, Nylon Japan, written in a feelance capacity for the New York Times, i-D and Dazed & Confused and been Senior Editor at Complex UK, host on NTS Radio and Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins.

The American Friends of the ICA with Ronnie Sassoon, Eleanor Cayre, Liam Gillick and Thea Westreich Wagner & Ethan Wagner as the founding members will serve as the new US arm of the ICA.