Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong to Depart Museum After 15 Years – RisePEI
The longtime director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Basis, which oversees the namesake New York museum and three different worldwide outposts, will depart from his place in 2023 after 14 years there.
For now, Richard Armstrong will proceed to steer the Guggenheim Museum and work with the board in a search to fill the place. A consultant mentioned the Guggenheim didn’t present a motive for his departure, which was introduced first by Armstrong himself in a Monetary Instances profile this week.
“I’ve had the chance to steer efforts that guarantee strong footing and ship a strong international cultural program for the Guggenheim,” Armstrong mentioned in a press release. “I’m pleased with what we now have completed together with: caring for the workers, embracing ideas round DEAI and sustainability, defining our model for the longer term, and coming by the pandemic with monetary well being.”
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Since 2008, Armstrong has overseen the New York basis and museum in addition to its satellites in Venice and Bilbao, in addition to plans for one forthcoming in Abu Dhabi. He succeeded the museum’s former director Thomas Krens, main a push to develop the museum’s attain internationally and additional securing the museum’s monetary footing. Throughout Armstrong’s tenure, the museum’s endowment has greater than doubled.
His tenure has not been with out tumult. The challenge to construct the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has been lengthy delayed and has steadily confronted allegations of staff’ rights violations, and workers on the Guggenheim Museum in New York have at instances decried Armstrong’s management.
Previous to heading the Guggenheim, Armstrong served as director of the Carnegie Museum of Artwork in Pittsburgh and the Whitney Museum in New York.
Underneath his path, the Guggenheim sought to develop the historical past of contemporary artwork. In 2015, it’s curators mounted “ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow, Fifties–60s,” the primary large-scale historic survey in america devoted to the German artwork motion Zero. A collection of acclaimed retrospectives have additionally been mounted for figures like On Kawara, Alberto Burri, Agnes Martin, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Hilma af Klint. The af Klint retrospective drew record-setting crowds to the Guggenheim.
These vital successes have typically stood in opposition to current behind the scenes controversies.
In 2020, management on the Guggenheim’s had been accused of making an inequitable and discriminatory work surroundings. It straight adopted allegations by impartial curator Chaédria LaBouvier that the museum’s chief curator Nancy Spector and others sought to “erase [her] labor” whereas organizing an exhibition targeted on Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work and its references to police violence. Spector departed the museum after 30 years there after that; an inner investigation performed by the Guggenheim cleared her of wrongdoing.
In 2020, Armstrong reportedly received a significant pay increase regardless of the museum’s pledge to chop govt salaries and a spherical of layoffs that shrunk its workers by 11 p.c. Staff on the Guggenheim decried the increase he obtained.
In the meantime, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has repeatedly been the topic of scrutiny. Activist teams generally known as the Gulf Labor Artist Coalition and the International Extremely Luxurious Faction have repeatedly led protests on the Guggenheim in New York in an effort to spotlight pay disparities and poor labor circumstances for these engaged on the Abu Dhabi museum. The Guggenheim has denied any employee abuse on the Abu Dhabi challenge, which is anticipated to open in 2025.
In a press release saying Armstrong’s departure, Guggenheim Museum board president Wendy Fisher known as Armstrong’s dedication to the New York assortment’s inventive integrity “unfailing.”
This 12 months, Armstrong led efforts to safe a 100-work present of up to date artwork from the Greek financier Dimitris Daskalopoulos collectively owned with the Museum of Up to date Artwork Chicago.
The Guggenheim’s board chair, J. Tomilson Hill, described Armstrong’s presence as “regular and inspiring” and mentioned that Armstrong “fostered a tradition of scholarship, innovation and inclusion.”
