Mariët Westermann has been appointed as director and chief govt of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Basis by the establishment’s board of trustees. She is the primary lady to carry the place and succeeds Richard Armstrong, who introduced his departure in summer time 2022.
Westermann will oversee the establishment’s flagship location in New York alongside the Peggy Guggenheim Assortment and Basis in Venice, whereas offering collaborative management to the administrators of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and forthcoming outpost in Abu Dhabi (like that in Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry), which was initially resulting from open in 2012. Westermann, who has been the vice chancellor of New York College’s Abu Dhabi campus since 2019 and served as its founding provost from 2007 to 2010, will convey her artwork historic experience and observe file of philanthropic work within the humanities to her new function.
Westermann’s contributions to the NYU Abu Dhabi undertaking run the gamut from serving to the college attain its full undergraduate scale to recruiting the college’s first Nobel Laureate professor, Wole Soyinka, in addition to growing new programmes, together with an MFA in visible artwork and media and a future MBA provided with NYU’s Stern Faculty of Enterprise. She holds a PhD and masters diploma from NYU’s Insitute of the Arts, with a focus on artwork from the Netherlands.
“I do know the readability of her considering, the care she has for artwork and artists, and her dedication to the sphere,” Glenn D. Lowry, the director of the Museum of Fashionable Artwork in New York, instructed The New York Instances. “I believe she’ll make an impressive colleague.”
Whereas the Guggenheim’s selection to switch Armstrong, who left the put up after 14 years within the function, with Westermann, who is just not an expert museum director and didn’t initially seem on the museum’s listing of candidates, is sudden, her expertise as govt vp of the Andrew Mellon Basis, director of NYU’s Institute of Wonderful Arts and affiliate director of analysis on the Clark Artwork Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, communicate to her tradition sector {qualifications}. Westermann will take up her new place on 1 June 2024, transferring to Manhattan within the course of.
“I’m assured Dr. Westermann will ably uphold the establishment’s founding imaginative and prescient whereas main our constellation of museums to a extra sustainable future, redefining the Guggenheim’s function in public discourse and opening our doorways—whether or not bodily or digital—to an ever-broader viewers,” Wendy Fisher, president of the Guggenheim Basis’s board of trustees, stated in a press release.
Westermann arrives on the Guggenheim throughout a tumultuous interval at its Manhattan museum, following prolonged contract negotiations with the brand new union representing many staff there, the controversial departure of its chief curator and public claims of racism and discrimination throughout the organisation. The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has additionally been the topic of protest over the circumstances for migrant staff within the area’s development business. It’s now anticipated to open in 2026.
“The calls for on museum administrators at present are very sophisticated,” Westermann instructed The New York Instances. “The ability set you want for a constellation just like the Guggenheim is a problem and alternative that appears properly mapped onto the sorts of experiences I’ve had.”
