Richard Koshalek: From High Life to Hirshhorn

Richard Koshalek, the Hirshhorn Museum's director designate
Photo: Steven A. Heller

I don't remember everything I read, but as soon as I learned that veteran art museum director Richard Koshalek had been named to become the new director of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (effective Apr. 13), a startling article that had appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in May 1999 immediately popped into my head.

I had trouble finding it through the WSJ's website, but here's a synopsis that gives you the gist:

"Wooing the rich means 'living the life,'" the Journal reports. "The kind of money we have to raise now puts pressure on me to be around wealthy people every single day," says Richard Koshalek, director and chief executive officer of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. "You have to be one of them."

Believing that "nothing attracts money like money---or the illusion of money," some of the largest cultural institutions provide their directors with large entertainment, car and clothing budgets. Still, some fundraisers get creative in finding ways to afford their expensive lifestyles. Koshalek, for example, often persuades donors' favorite restaurants to trade haute cuisine for haute couture perks and recognition.

The WSJ article detailed the ways in which Koshalek was obliged to emulate the lifestyle of the rich and famous...all in the line of duty. Tough job, but someone had to do it. In 1999, he left LA MOCA to become president of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, which he recently left amidst controversy.

We can only hope that the Smithsonian, still smarting from the infamous excesses of Lawrence Small and Richard West, keeps a close eye on Koshalek's expense account.

In the meantime, we wonder why the Hirshhorn's press release that announced Koshalek's appointment omitted from its rundown of past positions his directorship of the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, from 1976 to 1980.

And we can only feel sorry for Richard Armstrong, profiled yesterday by Ann Landi in the Wall Street Journal, whose Guggenheim director's job, "like his office, comes with few frills. No car and driver---even though most of the museum staff is in quarters downtown---and no subsidized apartment."

I guess being a museum big shot just ain't what it used to be.

[For CultureGrrl's two-part Armstrong profile, go here and here.]