Neuberger Museum Changes Directors

When PaolaÂ Morsiani Â became director of the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College in summer 2012, she told The New York Times, referencing the 2010 death of Roy Neuberger:Â â€œThe principal visionary originator of this institution has passed the baton on to us. On one side, we will continue his legacy, but it is my role to find the courage to initiate new ideas based on new needs.â€

It looks as if she could not find the right way to change, at least in the eyes of the Neuberger’s trustees. Today, after I inquired about rumors that she had been dismissed, I was told that she is being replaced byÂ TracyÂ Fitzpatrick,Â ChiefÂ CuratorÂ ofÂ the museum, on Nov. 1.

Morsiani, “at the request of the Purchase College Provost, is now working to develop key strategic initiatives involving the museum’s external partners in New York City and Albany,” the museum said in a press release emailed to me.

Morisiani had been curator of contemporary art at the Cleveland Museum of Art before taking the Neuberger job; she was also a 2008 fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, which trains curators to take on larger roles (hopefully, becoming directors).

In a feature for LoHud website of The Journal News in May, she said that the Neuberger, which completed a $10 million renovation in May 2013, was “doubling down on its commitment to living artists, including multimedia work,” the paper said, and quoted her as saying: “I’d like for us to become a little more experimental and engage a younger generation,” she says.

Â I had heard that whatever she was doing did not please the trustees, and that their relationship with her was not good. Of course, rumors don’t always capture the whole truth.

Here is theÂ Neuberger press release.

Photo Credit: Frank Becerra Jr./The Journal News