Philippe de Montebello’s announcement, in January, that he would retire from his Metropolitan Museum directorship by year’s end, set critical tongues wagging about potential replacements. At the top of most shortlists was MoMA’s Glenn D. Lowry, whose subsequent appointment of ex-Walker Art Center Director Kathy Halbreich as Associate Director – a specially created position – seemed to signal her as the chief ’s heir apparent (Halbreich last appeared on the Power 100 list in 2004, during the Walker’s $73.8 million Herzog & de Meuron-designed expansion). As it turns out, the MoMA board approved a new five-year contract with Lowry in February, a promising turn for a museum currently undergoing one of the most significant in-house shakeups in its 79-year history.
Following the museum’s rule that staff step down at the age of sixty-five, John Elderfield this past summer turned his post as Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture over to Ann Temkin, continuing work on the museum’s forthcoming Matisse and de Kooning shows as Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture. And now that MoMA has assumed full managerial command of P.S.1, as stipulated in the terms of their 2000 merger, P.S.1 Director Alanna Heiss is slated to retire at the end of the year. Chief Curator at Large Kynaston McShine will also make his exit in the near future.
While Lowry remains MoMA’s money man, these circumstances leave considerable room for Halbreich to inject the institution with a much-needed dose of curatorial relevance – and as an agent of change, she replaces Lowry on this list. In her 16 years at the Walker, Halbreich excelled in many facets of her directorial role, mounting significant exhibitions of Bruce Nauman, Joseph Beuys, Chantal Akerman and Hélio Oiticica; elevating the museum’s performing and media arts sectors into departments proper; spearheading the museum’s expansion; and leading a successful $100m capital campaign.
Halbreich’s associate directorship, which she assumed this past February, comes with no requirements for fundraising or capital expansion, though her responsibilities do include developing MoMA’s contemporary acquisitions, through the Fund for the 21st Century, and focusing the museum’s ‘pan-institutional contemporary programs and initiatives’. Given the museum’s sedentary reliance upon a conservative, male-centric account of modern art, expectations are high that Halbreich, Temkin and the other young hires stocking the museum’s departments will make the collection relevant to a twenty-first century audience. If How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age, Halbreich’s 2003 Walker exhibition, is any indication, relevance is forthcoming. A four-year collaboration between curators and educators from the Walker and China, India, Brazil and South Africa resulted in a year-long series of programmes, performing arts commissions and a high school teaching curriculum. Here’s hoping that the Modern sees equal returns on Halbreich’s progressive approach.
