Opening of a center for curatorial leadership in the United States

June 30, 2007 — Museums — New York — The rivalry between administrators and curators in running museums (which might eventually be won by the first in France) is also a crucial problem in the United States. It is for this reason that the Center for Curatorial Leadership has just been created. Its purpose is to select curators with potential leadership qualities for directing a museum and giving them administrative skills [1]. The founders are Agnes Gund, President Emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art and Elizabeth Easton, formerly in charge of the Department of European Paintings at the Brooklyn Museum. Among the members of the Advisory Committee are, notably, the present director of the Kimbell Museum, Timothy Potts (who will take over as head of the Fitzwilliam Museum in September-see News of June 8, 2007), the director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Axel Rüger and Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who considers that “If we are to win the battle of the ’curator/director’ over the ’administrator/director,’ a profile with which increasingly Boards of trustees are instinctively more comfortable, then it is essential to enlarge the pool of curators with the qualifications to be tomorrow’s museum directors.[...]"

Ten applicants will be selected for this program which will last four weeks, between January and June 2008, and which is financed by the Center. It is helpful to know that applications (either personal or on recommendation of their director) are not limited to United States citizens. The deadline for applying is July 31, 2007.

Link to the Center for Curatorial Leadership website.