The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has selected its longtime chief curator of drawings and prints, Christophe Cherix, as the institution’s next director. He will take the reins from Glenn Lowry, who has led the museum since 1995, in September.
“I have been privileged to work with Christophe for more than 15 years at MoMA, and I am delighted that the board has chosen him to be the next director of the museum,” Lowry said in a statement. “In the months ahead, we will work together to ensure a smooth and successful transition. Christophe is a gifted and talented curator, and I look forward to seeing the museum evolve and thrive under his able direction.”
The selection of Cherix to succeed Lowry was approved unanimously by MoMA’s board of trustees. “Christophe’s brilliant curatorial leadership in modern and contemporary art, deep insight and passion for MoMA’s collection and reputation for steady stewardship stood out as indispensable qualities to meet the moment as the museum’s next director,” Marie-Josée Kravis, the board’s chair, said in a statement.
Cherix, who was born in Switzerland, has worked at MoMA since 2007, when he came to New York from the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva, where he had been a curator of prints. In 2010, he became the chief curator of MoMA’s department of prints and illustrated books. In 2013, when that department merged with the department of drawings, he became the chief curator of drawings and prints, the role he has held since then.
During this time, Cherix organised many popular and critically acclaimed exhibitions at MoMA, including last year’s Ed Ruscha retrospective and the museum’s 2018 Adrian Piper retrospective (co-curated with Connie Butler and David Platzker), and co-curated solo exhibitions devoted to Betye Saar (in 2019, with Esther Adler), Marcel Broodthaers (in 2016, with Manuel Borja-Villel), Yoko Ono (in 2015, with Klaus Biesenbach) and Jasper Johns (in 2014, with Ann Temkin).
“MoMA has long been a leader in embracing new forms of expression, amplifying the voices of artists from around the globe, and engaging the broadest audiences onsite and online,” Cherix said in a statement. “As the museum approaches its centennial, my highest priority is to support its exceptional staff and ensure that their unique ability to navigate the ever-evolving present continues to thrive.”
MoMA’s footprint has expanded enormously since Lowry took the helm 30 years ago. Four years into his tenure, the museum announced plans to merge with the PS1 Center for Contemporary Art in Long Island City, Queens, deepening its connections to the contemporary-art world. He then oversaw a major expansion of MoMA’s home in Midtown onto an adjacent plot of land. That project, which required the museum to relocate its public programming to a temporary venue in Queens while its campus was gutted and scaled up, kicked off in 2001 and was completed in 2004, coinciding with the museum’s 75th anniversary.
Just a few years later, MoMA’s leadership was eyeing a parcel of land next-door and some space freed up by the closure of the American Folk Art Museum’s neighbouring building, which MoMA ultimately demolished. The ensuing expansion into the lower levels of a new skyscraper cost $450m and added another 102,000 sq. ft of space to the museum when it reopened in the autumn of 2019.
In addition to its expanding footprint, MoMA’s coffers have grown during Lowry’s tenure: the museum’s endowment has gone from around $200m in 1995 to $1.7bn today; and its annual operating budget has more than doubled in that time, from around $80m to around $190m.
Lowry’s tenure has been marked by sporadic tensions and scandals, too. These have included sometimes-tense contract negotiations with the museum’s unionised employees; one such bargaining impasse led workers to go on strike for several months in 2000. Kravis’s predecessor as MoMA board chair, Leon Black, came under fire for his connections to Jeffrey Epstein; after Black opted not to seek re-election as board chair, he was accused of rape in multiple lawsuits. (Black still serves as a trustee of the museum.) Kravis’s appointment as Black’s successor has also prompted a series of protests due to her and her husband’s investments in the oil and gas industry.
