Tate Modern's Chief Curator Heading to Met to Head New Modern/Contemporary Dept
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today the appointment of Sheena Wagstaff to the newly created position of chairman of the department of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Today, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the appointment of Sheena Wagstaff to the newly created position of chairman of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Currently chief curator at London’s Tate Modern, Wagstaff is expected to arrive in New York in late spring.
The new position comes at a time when the museum is ramping up to take over the nearby Breuer building, which currently houses the Whitney Museum, in 2015.
Wagstaff was a driving force in the Turbine Hall installation that welcomed major projects by such international talents as Olafur Eliasson, Doris Salcedo and most recently Ai Weiwei. The appointment appears to demonstrate the museum’s dedication to the new Breur endeavor by bringing in a professional who has experience mounting large-scale media-friendly contemporary art exhibitions that certainly know how to make a splash.
No stranger to New York, Wagstaff did her post-graduate curatorial studies in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program in Manhattan.
The Met’s press release mentions that:
In addition to contributing to Tate’s international monitoring group for modern and contemporary acquisitions, she has been particularly involved with the Middle East and North African Acquisitions Committee, as well as Tate’s broad interests in the U.S., including the Tate’s American Trustees.
In other news, the Met will be combining their 19th C. and Old Masters departments.
