Guggenheim Museum Appoints Melissa Chiu as Next Director
After 12 years at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum, Chiu will be joining the New York institution this coming September.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City has appointed Melissa Chiu as its new director, starting September 1. Bookending her 12-year tenure at the Smithsonian Institution's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, Chiu will make her return to New York at a particularly challenging period for both museum networks.
Chiu's appointment is part of Guggenheim Foundation Director and CEO Mariët Westermann's restructuring of the institution's global leadership team ahead of the opening of a controversial Abu Dhabi outpost, scheduled for later this year. According to a press release, Westermann will hand the reins of the flagship Manhattan museum to Chiu in order to oversee the foundation's international outposts, leaving the latter in charge of the Guggenheim's artistic direction, programming, day-to-day operations, and finances.
Chiu will enter the Guggenheim amid an extended period of fiscal instability attributed to a long-term revenue slump induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, a problem many museums say they are facing. The Guggenheim has undergone three rounds of controversial staff layoffs in the last six years — two during the final years of former Director Richard Armstrong's polarizing tenure, and one under Westermann in early 2025 that sparked fury within the museum's labor union.
As negotiations stall for the next three-year contract, the union recently picketed outside of the Guggenheim's opening reception for the Carol Bove retrospective in March.
In its announcement today, Westermann praised Chiu's track record of arts leadership, noting that she “transformed the Hirshhorn with the international and local disposition that is so special to our institution.” According to the statement, Chiu increased fundraising at the Hirshhorn by 75% and secured two multimillion-dollar gifts for the museum. She is also credited with doubling the museum's attendance in three years, establishing new visitor experience technology programs, and leading the revitalization project for the Sculpture Garden on the National Mall.
Under Chiu's leadership, the Hirshhorn acquired 175 artworks by artists including Theaster Gates, Mika Rottenberg, Laurie Anderson, Dread Scott, Danica Lundy, and Mary Anne Unger in the year leading up to the museum's 50th anniversary in 2025. She also partnered with MTV and the Smithsonian Channel for a Hirshhorn-based reality TV show competition called The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist (2023), which was fun in theory but missed the mark in practice.
“Melissa has guided the Hirshhorn with thoughtfulness and purpose, strengthening its role as a national museum while supporting artists, scholars and the public,” said Lonnie Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in a press statement regarding Chiu's departure.
Chiu's exit from the Hirshhorn coincides with an already difficult time for the Smithsonian, which is currently being scrutinized by the Trump administration through targeted executive orders threatening to cut federal funding over content, programming, and research that promote “race-centered ideology” and inclusive gender identities.
Prior to joining the Smithsonian, Chiu held multiple roles at the Asia Society Museum in New York from 2001 to 2014. Arriving at the Big Apple from Australia, she served as the museum's first curator of contemporary Asian and Asian American art for three years before being appointed as director in 2004.
Chiu spearheaded the Asia Society's contemporary Asian art collection in 2007 in an effort to complement the institution's traditional holdings, kicking off the collection by securing a gift of 28 new media works. In 2010, she became the senior vice president of global arts and culture programming — a role through which she developed programming for the Asia Society and Museum's Houston and Hong Kong locations and initiated the institution's Arts and Museums Summit.
“I look forward to ensuring that the Guggenheim in New York remains a place of joy and learning about art and artists for all who visit,” Chiu said of her upcoming institutional return to the city.
Aaron Seeto, deputy director at the Hirshhorn, will serve as the museum's interim director upon Chiu's departure.
