Art Basel Miami Beach 2021, December 1

Re-inventing the Institution? New Museum Leaders

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Conversations | Re-inventing the Institution? New Museum Leaders How to chart the future of an art museum while honoring or redressing its past, is a complex challenge for any museum leaders, but perhaps particularly delicate for newly appointed ones. New leadership brings opportunities to inject exciting ideas into an institution, albeit under the scrutiny of communities, trustees, staff and artists. In this panel, recent appointees to major institutions share how they approach these challenges, as well as how they view the evolving role of the museum director in these turbulent times. Johanna Burton, The Maurice Marciano Director, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles Isolde Brielmaier, Deputy Director, New Museum, New York Alison Gass, Krieger Family Director, The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF) Moderator: Andras Szanto, Author and Cultural Strategy Advisor Johanna Burton is the Maurice Marciano Director of The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). She was previously Executive Director of the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, where she concentrated on developing initiatives actively engaged with the most pressing cultural issues of our times, and oversaw an expansion of the center’s education, outreach, and public programs. Burton’s past posts include Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Engagement at the New Museum, New York; Director of the Graduate Program at Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), New York; and Associate Director &amp; Senior Faculty Member at the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program (ISP), New York.Isolde Brielmaier is the newly appointed Deputy Director of the New Museum as well as Curator-at-Large at the International Center for Photography (ICP), NYC. Previously, Isolde was Executive Director and Curator of Arts, Culture &amp; Community at Westfield World Trade Center and has worked for the Guggenheim Museum, Bronx Museum of Art, and the SCAD Museum of Art. Isolde is also Professor of Critical Studies in Tisch's Department of Photography, Imaging and Emerging Media at New York University. Publications include: Culture as Catalyst, 2020 and I am Sparkling, 2022. She speaks regularly on topics related to art, culture, leadership and social impact. She serves on the boards of the Women’s Prison Association (WPA) and the sustainable fashion brand Another Tomorrow, as well as an advisor to Malaika, an all-girls school in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Isolde holds a PhD from Columbia University and lives in New York City. Alison Gass is ICA San Francisco’s Krieger Family Director. Her leadership in museums has reflected a sustained commitment to building globally-minded and community-engaged exhibitions programs and diversifying museums’ collections, exhibition programs, staff and visitorship. Most recently Alison served as ICA San José’s Executive Director and Chief Curator where she steered the museum through its most successful year during COVID. Before that, she was appointed the Dana Feitler Director of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago where she launched the Feitler Center for Academic Engagement. Previously Gass was the Chief Curator at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, and Assistant Curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Gass also served as Founding Chief Curator at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. She holds degrees in Art History from Columbia University and the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU.András Szántó is a widely published author and editor who advises museums, foundations, universities, and corporations on cultural strategy and program development, worldwide. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, Artnet, and The Art Newspaper, among other publications. As a consultant, he advises some of the world’s leading museums, cultural institutions, and corporate art programs. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he helped launch and oversee the Global Museum Leaders Colloquium. His most recent book is The Future of the Museum: 28 Dialogues. He earned his PhD from Columbia University in New York. He is based in Brooklyn. The Art Basel Miami Beach 2021 Conversations program is curated by Art Basel and Edward Winkleman, author and private dealer.