Comings and Goings

This month:

 

Susan Beningson joins the Brooklyn Museum

Susan Beningson will be the Brooklyn Museum's assistant curator of Asian Art, which is a new post created as the institution prepares to reinstall its galleries of Asian and Islamic art, which are due to open in 2015.

Carrie Pilto to join Matisse Museum

Carrie Pilto has been appointed the director of the Matisse Museum, le Cateau-Cambrésis. Pilto was previously a project assistant curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 2007 until 2011, where she worked on “The Steins Collect,” a travelling exhibition of the collection of Gertrude, Leo and Michael Stein. She takes over from Dominique Szymusiak, who announced her retirement in September.

Janne Sirén joins Albright-Knox Art Gallery

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, has named Janne Sirén as its new director. Sirén comes to the position after serving as the director of the Helsinki Art Museum for the past five years. He was a primary actor in the attempt to bring a $185m Guggenheim museum to Helsinki, which is being held up by the city council. Sirén is due to take up his new US post in the late spring or early summer.

Three new board members at Rubin Museum of Art

Three new board members have joined the Rubin Museum of Art, New York. Anuradha Duggal comes to the job as an entrepreneur who helped found a $48m internet fashion and décor firm; Tommy Yang Guo is a finance specialist who sits on the board for the Asian art committee at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Amy G. Poster (pictured) is an independent curator who was at the Brooklyn Museum’s Asian art department for more than 35 years.

Jack Lang proposed as Arab World Institute leader

The former French Socialist minister of culture Jack Lang has been put forward by French authorities to lead the Arab World Institute (AWI). Lang must first be approved by the Arab partners of the Paris-based organisation, which has a budget of €24m and 140 employees. Lang served twice as France’s minister of culture, from 1981 until 1986 and again from 1988 to 1992. He was also the minister of education twice, from 1992 to 1993 and from 2000 to 2002.

Holly Hotchner to leave Museum of Arts and Design

Holly Hotchner, the director of the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York, is leaving down 16 years at the helm. She will leave on 30 April, and the former director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, David Gordon, will take over on an interim basis. Hotchner oversaw the move of the museum to Columbus Circle in 2008, a $110m project, an eclectic exhibition programme as well as the development of the Tiffany & Co. Foundation Jewelry Gallery, focusing on contemporary jewelry. The board of trustees will begin searching for a new director in February.

Andrew Burnett retires from the British Museum

Andrew Burnett has stepped down as the deputy director of London's British Museum, retiring last December after ten years in the post. He was closely involved in overseeing the museum's World Conservation and Exhibition Centre, which is due to open next year. Before becoming the deputy director he was the keeper of the museum’s department of coins and medals (1992-2003). He was awarded a CBE in 2012. A spokeswoman for the British Museum says that the future of the deputy director’s post is under review and an announcement is planned next month.

Rebecca Morse leaving LA MoCA for Lacma

Rebecca Morse is joining the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to be an associate curator within its photography department. She leaves the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art where she held a post of the same title, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Alisa LaGamma takes over Met's Africa, Oceania and the Americas department

Alisa LaGamma will become the curator in charge of the department of the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art on 1 April. She succeeds Julie Jones, who retires at the end of March after 21 years as the head of the department. Jones will become a curator emeritus.

Gregory Perry named director of Pallant House Gallery

The next director of the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester will be Gregory Perry. He succeeds Stefan Van Ray who oversaw the transformation of the award-winning Modern art museum on the south coast of England. Since 2009, Perry has been the director of operations and administration at London's National Gallery. Before that he was the director of the Allentown Art Museum, Pennsylvania.

Ellen Roberts join Norton Museum

Ellen Roberts has been hired as the new curator of American art at the Norton Museum, West Palm Beach. Roberts joins the museum from the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was the associate curator of American art, covering work made before 1900. Her new position will include art made up to 1945. Her most recently completed exhibition for the Art Institute, “Art and Apetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine,” is due to open in November.

Birgitta Augustin hired by Detroit Institute of Arts

The Detroit Institute of Arts has named Birgitta Augustin its associate curator of Asian art. After leaving her post as a research associate in the Asian art department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2010, Augustin received a National Museum Fellowship for which she completed research on the visual culture of Korea. At the Metropolitan Museum, she worked on several shows, including “The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty".

Lynn Orr to leave Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco

Lynn Orr, the curator of European art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco for the past 29 years, looks to have been let go by the institution. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Orr has been out of the office since 20 November and that she was unwilling to comment on the situation once reached. Just prior to Orr’s departure, she had signed a petition with about 100 other employees protesting new management decisions, including the installation of a time-clock system for hourly workers.

Mark Bills takes over at Gainsborough's House

Gainsborough's House in Sudbury, Suffolk, has appointed Mark Bills as its executive director. Currently the curator of the Watts Gallery, Sussex, Bills is due to take up his new post running the gallery in Thomas Gainsborough's boyhood home in the east of England on 4 March.

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