Search Results for: max hollein

My first reaction when this press release from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco hit my inbox today at 6:51 p.m. was: This has gotta be a hoax! Reading the first sentence of FAMSF's announcement made me even more incredulous: The Board of Trustees of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) and the Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums (COFAM) today appointed … [Read more...] about Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s Campbell Gamble: Tom & Max Hollein Improbably Trade Places

Smart is the adjective that always crops up when people describe Max Hollein, the Metropolitan Museum's new director. Yesterday, he made one of his first smart moves by issuing a detailed letter to Met members, appending an email address through which they can share "any thoughts about the museum." To convey some idea of who Max is and what he plans to do, here are … [Read more...] about Remember the Members: Parsing Max Hollein’s Letter to Metropolitan Museum’s Most Devoted Fans

Max Hollein will have two strikes against him---one insignificant, one potentially serious---when he walks in the door this summer as the Metropolitan Museum's new director. The first liability is irremediable, unless he's planning a sex-change: He is not a woman. In this identity-politics era, that's a lamentable deficiency for some, notably Lisa Oliver, an assistant … [Read more...] about What Obstacles Will Max Hollein Need to Surmount as Metropolitan Museum’s New Director?

Okay, I knew this. Last week, I contacted Max Hollein, who this afternoon has just been named (by Robin Pogrebin, at the above link) as the Metropolitan Museum's next director, effective this summer. (Press release from the Met came shortly after the NY Times piece, and perhaps others that I didn't see, went online.) I had asked Max last Wednesday if he could send me … [Read more...] about Fine with Hollein: Max to Be Metropolitan Museum’s New Director

When I interviewed him more than a year ago over lunch in New York, Frankfurt museum director Max Hollein and I were obsessed with technology. I was then working on this Wall Street Journal article about how museums use technology to improve the gallery experience (or not). He was promoting the new Digital Extension initiative at the Städel Museum, one of the three Frankfurt … [Read more...] about Max Facts: How Hollein Straddles the Divides Between Contemporary/Historic, Tech/Traditional

Max Hollein, the Met's new director, who spoke confidently and compellingly during our informal NYC lunches while he was directing three Frankfurt museums, twice surprised me in the space of one week with his uneasy, hesitant delivery during introductory remarks at two recent press previews (Jack Whitten last Wednesday; Delacroix today). He even seemed tense during a 25-minute, … [Read more...] about Holistic Hollein: A Halting Conversation with the Metropolitan Museum’s New Director

The last time I interviewed Max Hollein, 46, who has just been named to become the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's new director (effective June 1), he was in New York for the November 2014 annual meeting of the Bizot Group (aka the International Group of Organizers of Large Scale Exhibitions), for which he then was (and still is) chairman. Bizot consists of the heads of … [Read more...] about Fine with Hollein: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Snare an International Standout as Director

Is the "slippery slope" on the verge of becoming even more treacherous? In conversations with its members this week, the Association of Art Museum Directors discussed whether the organization should consider (not immediately enact) an indefinite extension of the two-year relaxation of its time-honored deaccession guidelines, which had prohibited the use of art proceeds for … [Read more...] about AAMD’s Deaccession Dilemma (& the Met’s Equivocations)

The Metropolitan Museum's premature revelation that it might take advantage of the Association of Art Museum Directors' relaxed deaccession standards, by selling art to help pay for "care of the collection," was an object lesson in how not to roll out a controversial, temporary policy change. The predictable chorus of condemnation that ensued caught the attention of NPR's … [Read more...] about Pandemic Polemics: Metropolitan Museum’s Off-Key NPR Message vs. Cleveland’s Harmonious Storage Show UPDATED

Throwing caution to the winds, the Metropolitan Museum today went beyond the more measured words of a few other museums in its angry call to "bring to justice those responsible" for the "criminal actions" at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The Met's official Statement on Capitol Desecration, signed by Daniel Weiss, president and CEO, and Max Hollein, director, began with this … [Read more...] about Capitol Offense: Metropolitan Museum Blasts “Domestic Terrorism” by “Treasonous Rioters”

POIGNANT?!? "Horrific," "Profoundly Disturbing," "Jolting"...but surely not "Poignant." That mild adjective was used by the Metropolitan Museum's communications office in its headline (below) for the press release announcing the display (to Jan. 18) of Gerhard Richter's four paintings from his "landmark 'Birkenau' series" of 2014, in which black-and-white photographic … [Read more...] about “Birkenau” Blunder: Metropolitan Museum Says Richter’s Riffs on the Holocaust are “Poignant”

Here we go again... The above headline echos my title for a June 2009 post, reporting on the Metropolitan Museum's staff purge during the Great Recession. So it's with dejected déjà vu that I now regretfully report the imminent departure of some 90 Metropolitan Museum staffers, from departments including security, facilities management, retail, education, conservation, … [Read more...] about Who’s Leaving the Metropolitan Museum? A Partial List of Retirees