There are big moves taking place in the New York museum world this week, with the Jewish Museum naming Claudia Gould as its new director and International Center of Photography director Willis E. Hartshorn announcing that he plans to resign in order to manage his Parkinson’s disease.
Jewish Museum
Ms. Gould arrives at the Upper East Side’s Jewish Museum from the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has served as director since 1999. The New York Times notes that, while in that role, she increased the museum’s annual budget from $1 million to $3.1 million and increased staff numbers.
Ms. Gould–who will replace Joan Rosenbaum, who is ending a 30-year tenure at the museum–has also worked as the executive director of Soho-based nonprofit Artists Space and as a curator at Columbus, Ohio’s Wexner Center for the Arts.
The newly named director told The Times that she believes her programming will reflect “a mixture of what went on in the 60’s and 70’s and what Joan Rosenbaum has done, which is really rooting it in the culture.” In the 1960’s and 70’s, the Jewish Museum was known for hosting seminal shows of early Pop and Minimal art.
International Center of Photography
Mr. Hartshorn has served as director of the ICP since 1994 and said that he has suffered from Parkinson’s since 2004. Though museum trustees have been supportive of his leadership since that diagnosis–“a very humane thing that reflects well on this organization,” he said–he decided it would be best to bring in new leadership at this point.
“I’m seven years into this thing, and I can feel the difference physically,” Mr. Hartshorn told The Times. “… [T]he best thing for me and my family is that I pace myself in an appropriate way.”
Mr. Hartshorn joined the ICP in 1982 and served as director of exhibitions and deputy director of programs before taking the helm of the institution. A decade ago he oversaw the center’s move from the Upper East Side to its current location in Midtown.
