Inside the MoMA Succession Sweepstakes
Itâs generally thought of as the worst traffic fortnight in Manhattan: the weeks-long proceedings of the United Nations General Assembly, which ensnares all travel patterns on the east side of the island. Road closures, idling black cars, and battalions of cops and Secret Service agents make swaths of Midtown impossible-to-transverse hellscapes for a few days every September. By Tuesday evening, the construction around the JPMorgan supertall thatâs taking over a full block on Park Avenue only added to the chaos, as did the flurry of e-biking meal couriers delivering sad desk dinners to still-working bankers. And thatâs when President Joe Bidenâs motorcade rolled through.
Amid the Midtown madness outside, a wonderful calm fell upon the sixth floor of the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street. A retrospective of the marvelously unclassifiable German artist Thomas SchĂŒtte had taken over the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Center for Special Exhibitions, installed just in time for the opening cocktails. Met director Max Hollein, who told me heâs quite fond of SchĂŒtte and put him in several shows, walked into the room and marveled at the 12-foot-tall sculpture Vater Staat (Father State), on loan from the collection of Ken Griffinâs ex-wife, Anne Dias. A few floors down was a retrospective of the photographer Robert Frankâpics ranging from Beats goofing off to the Stones recording Exile on Main St.âand in the sculpture garden below, two full bars boozed up Gothamâs patrons of the arts.
Something else was in the air too. It had been a few weeks since MoMA director Glenn Lowry announced that he would be stepping down from the role in September 2025, which was not a shock, exactlyâthe usual age of retirement at MoMA is 65, and Lowryâs pushing 70. But his widely acknowledged successes led him to stay on for an extra five-year term that expires next year. And now that itâs official, all people can talk about when they talk about MoMA isâŠwho will be tapped to run MoMA.
Understandably so. The job is arguably the plummest perch in all of museum-dom. Lowryâs had it for 30 years, reshaping the institution as the role of museum director itself shifted immensely across the field. Aside from a few dustupsâvarious protests, a disgruntled ex-memberâs alleged stabbing spree, the Björk showâLowryâs a revered figure in the field. His departure announcement prompted a chorus of hosannas for his tenure followed by an inevitable question: Who can follow up a polymathic director beloved by both the budget teams and the curatorial teams, one who oversaw two renovation campaigns and is leaving the museumâs coffers fuller than theyâve ever been?
Vater Staat (Father State), 2010 (detail). Patinated bronze. 149 5/8 Ă 61 Ă 55âł (380 Ă 155 Ă 139.7 cm).Collection Anne Dias Griffin, Photo by Steven E. Gross. 2024 Thomas SchĂŒtte / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.
âThe thing thatâs remarkable about GlennâIâve often been disturbed by how he has been framed as corporate, because he is immensely capable of using both sides of his brain. As I have often said to people, do you want a director who canât count?â said Kathy Halbreich, who served as the associate director under Lowry for a decade of his tenure. âYou must have a director that is able to be an equal in terms of financial planning, investment, and the financial side of the institutionâand you want a director who is passionate about modern and contemporary art.
And now someone needs to follow in his footsteps. Halbreich, like many others contacted for this story, did not want to go on the record naming namesâout of respect for the process, of course, but also because thereâs a chance that all the prognosticators are dead wrong. Itâs unlikely that the art cognoscenti were able to predict, in 1995, that the board of the worldâs most prominent postwar art institution would pick Lowry, who specialized in Islamic studies and was then the director of the Art Gallery of Ontario.
âIâm sure he was not among the candidates bandied around,â Halbreich said.
It hasnât gotten any easier to predict these things decades later. But I asked around anyway, fully aware of the futility of trying to guess whom the board might pick as director just a few weeks into the search process. Just for fun: Letâs dive in. (For the record: MoMA did not respond to a request for comment about the next director.)
Several people said that Studio Museum director Thelma Golden was a leading candidate. Thatâs hardly newsâin Calvin Tomkinsâs profile of Golden for The New Yorker this year, it was revealed that Lowry and Golden âget together and chuckle over the persistent rumor that she will succeed him as MoMAâs next director.â It would be a historic first, to have a Black woman run a museum that has only had white men as directors. Plus, Golden has a close relationship to the museum that was codified with a joint fellowship endeavor between the Studio Museum and MoMA PS1 while her museum is under construction.
But that construction is also the reason most often cited as to why Golden wonât be director: The Studio Museumâs first purpose-built home has been in the works for years, and museum directors are effectively forbidden from leaving their posts in the middle of capital campaigns. Barring some kind of more permanent partnership between MoMA and the Studio Museum, it might be impossible for her to depart before the building opens.
Of course, itâs also possible that Golden has no interest in moving 72 blocks downtown.
âSheâs so identified with the Studio Museumâsheâs a beloved national figure and the most successful Black museum director in American history,â said one museum-world insider.
Another name thatâs been brought up often is Dia Art Foundation director Jessica Morgan, whoâs well-liked across the institutional landscape and led Dia through its own successful capital campaign to renovate its spaces in Chelsea. At the same time, sheâs managed to expand the variety of artists in the collection from the usual coterie favored by the founders, and turned Dia Beacon into an Instagrammable, must-hit day trip spot. Another possible candidate is Courtney J. Martin, who worked as a curator under Morgan and earlier this year left her perch running the Yale Center for British Art to head the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Many others mentioned Franklin Sirmans, the director of the PĂ©rez Art Museum Miami since 2015, who before that was a top contemporary curator at LACMA.
Another contender is James Rondeau, who has led the Art Institute of Chicago since 2016. If youâre looking for a peer institution to MoMA, the Institute isnât a bad optionâespecially since it gained the Edlis-Neeson collection, a nearly $500 million trove of 44 works that Rondeau worked tirelessly to secure. Rondeauâs an AIC liferâhe worked his way up at that citadel of culture on Lake Michigan, starting as an associate curator at 28 and becoming director after leading the contemporary department for a decade.
MoMA could, of course, do something similar and make an internal hire. Thatâs what happened when Adam Weinberg stepped down from the Whitney last year and Scott Rothkopf was waiting in the wings, and thatâs going great. The leading candidate for an internal strategy at MoMA would be Sarah Suzuki, who last year was promoted to associate director, with some saying that she was being groomed for the job.
Robert Frank. Untitled (bulletin board). 1971. Gelatin silver print, 8 7/8 Ă 13 1/8âł (22.6 Ă 33.4 cm).The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation.
On Tuesday, during the opening party for SchĂŒtte, I thought Iâd make a party game of asking around.
âIt has to be Thelma, right? Though she has her own museumâŠâ said one guest, an art adviser. âI mean, Glenn was so good with the political stuff. Itâs like he was playing 4D chess.â
Some offered dark horse candidatesâperhaps unlikely, but itâs anyoneâs guess at this point.
âIâm hearing itâs this Adam Levine guy out of Toledo,â said one attendee.
That would be a fascinating choice. Levine is something of a Midwestern museum wunderkindâhe was appointed the head of the Toledo Museum of Art at the ripe age of 33, and this month was named to the board of trustees of the University of Toledo by Ohio governor Mike DeWine.
âI think it should be Deana Haggag, someone young who can do it for 30 years,â said another attendee.
Haggag, who has been the program director at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation since 2021, is also just 37âso she could indeed serve for 30 years, if that were something she wanted to do.
After the opening at the museum ended, a number of dealers and artists braved the UN security checkpointsâchockablock with burly, earpiece-shouting men in flag pinsâand walked around the block to Michaelâs, the media power-lunch spot that still maintains its buzzy lit-glamour even if most of the magazinesâthose still publishing, at leastâhave ditched Midtown for downtown. (Last time I was there, I was attending a party for the release of Tina Brownâs book The Palace Papersâgreat times.) On Tuesday, when I walked in, actor David Harbour was sitting in the front booth, finishing dinner.
At Michaelâs, the cocktail chatter about the next director continued. One dinner guest mused about the power dynamic on whatâs probably the wealthiest museum board on earth, by combined net worths. The current chair, Marie-JosĂ©e Kravis, helped MoMA PS1 board chair Sarah Arison to be president, an explicit overture to a newer generation of arts patrons. Arison, the 39-year-old granddaughter of the founder of Carnival Cruise Line, is perhaps the cityâs greatest arts philanthropist under 40. The old guard of Kravis and the new guard of Arison will work together with the board to find a consensus candidate. Former board chair Agnes Gundâs legacy as a longtime mentor to Arison lingers as well.
At dinner, one attendee said it was âRondeauâs job to lose.â Another wondered about the influence of one of the boardâs newest members, LVMH heir Alexandre Arnault, amid all this.
Regardless, the board is deliberating, and the rest of us will have to keep guessing until the cardinals send white smoke out of the Vatican of high culture on 53rd Street.
The Rundown
Your crib sheet for the comings and goings in the art world this week and beyondâŠ
âŠHereâs a fun anecdote that got left out of my story from this week about the Artists for Kamala fundraiser. I mentioned that communications exec Andrea Schwan is on the advisory committee. I didnât explain how she secured a consignment from none other thanâŠLeonardo DiCaprio? Earlier this month, Schwan went to an intimate dinner to celebrate Firelei BĂĄezâs opening at Hauser & Wirth in LA, held in the garden area near gallery restaurant Manuela. She found herself seated with the art adviser Ralph DeLuca and DiCaprio, who is one of DeLucaâs clients and close friendsâDiCaprio, as we all know, is a massive collector of contemporary art, fossils, comics, you name it. The three of them stayed long after dinner talking, and as soon as DiCaprio heard about the Artists for Kamala sale, he immediately offered to help, and then he had the idea to consign a work from his collection to be sold, with all the proceeds going to the campaign. He really meant itâand thatâs how a Josh Smith painting called Demme, from the collection of Leonardo DiCaprio, ended up in the Artists for Kamala sale.
âŠSpeaking of online auctions, there are some real gems in the on-sale collection of the late curator Kasper König, who passed away in August. Remarkably, nearly 100 lots are currently bidding at 500 euros or lower. My personal favorite is a pencil-on-paper self-portrait doodle by Richard Serra. Under the rendering of his own face, Serra wrote, âDonât exclude too much.â Itâs got six bids and is currently at 300 euros.
âŠPrada co-creative director Raf Simons put a bunch of his rare furniture and design objects for sale through the Italian auction site Piasaâthough, from what I know about his pretty sick art collection, this is barely a dent in his holdings. Still, there were some nice editioned Picasso ceramics and this extremely chic Nakashima chaise, plus a ââPersan floor lamp by Jean RoyĂšre that was estimated to sell for 90,000 eurosâbut the Raf-heads went nuts on this one and pushed the bidding up to 221,000 euros.
âŠA highlight from the November sales in New York will certainly be the estate of interior designer Mica Ertegun, wife of music executive Ahmet Ertegun, on sale at Christieâs. Included are a number of topflight Magritte paintings, such as one from the Empire of Light series, which contains a dozen or so works, most of which are in museum collections. Itâs estimated to sell for more than $95 million. I had thought that George W. S. Trow mentioned the Ertegun-owned Magrittes in his legendary New Yorker profile of Ahmet. Turns out that he actually didnât, but there is a fascinating party report from Mick Jaggerâs 29th birthday on the roof of the St. Regis.
âŠLooking ahead to Frieze Week in London, one highly anticipated bash is the party that Loewe and its creative director, Jonathan Anderson, are throwing for Studio Voltaire, to celebrate the 30th birthday of the beloved south London nonprofit housed in a former Methodist church. Since 2021, the Loewe Foundation / Studio Voltaire Award has given seven artists a two-year residency at the SV HQ, and an international artist a one-year residency that comes with a 25,000-British-pound stipend for living costs.
âŠIn addition to fouling up traffic in Midtown, President Biden managed to do some museumgoing while in Manhattan. On Wednesday, he hosted the annual reception for the General Assembly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with string quartets and uniformed guards greeting guests who arrived on the red carpet. He addressed the crowd in the European Sculpture Court, giving a special thanks to attendee Michael Bloomberg, who gave $20 million to the presidentâs campaign in June. âI should start off by saying we owe a special thanks tonight to Mayor Bloomberg,â Biden said. âHeâs not the mayor right now, but heâs still the mayor.â
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