Paola Antonelli

Paola Antonelli is senior curator of architecture and design and founding director of research and development at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her work investigates design’s influence on everyday experience, often including overlooked objects and practices. She was appointed director of MOMA’s new research and development initiative in 2012. Antonelli lectures frequently at global conferences and coordinates cultural discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos. An inductee of the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, she was recently rated as one of the top 100 most powerful people in the world of art by Art Review.

Since she stepped back from practicing architecture in order to focus on writing about design, teaching and curating gallery exhibitions, Italian native Paola Antonelli has become a force to be reckoned with in the design world. Working at the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1994, she is senior curator of the gallery's Architecture and Design department and, as of 2012, the museum's first-ever director of research and development. Antonelli has worked on shows such as "Humble Masterpieces," which celebrated traditionally unheralded design icons such as the paperclip; "Design and the Elastic Mind," considering the relationship of design and technology, and "Talk to Me," which looked at design and the communication of people and objects.

Ever mindful that the majority of visitors to MOMA are attracted by artists such as Picasso and Matisse, Antonelli works to ensure that if they do stumble across a design-related show, they'll be both entertained and enlightened. In 2012, she led a move to acquire 14 video games for the museum's permanent collection.