Dorothy Spears‘ article in today’s large NY Times Museums section, When the Final Touch is the Exit Door, lists 11 museum directors—by name or by the name of their institutions—who announced they were leaving their posts shortly after the completion of major capital projects. But two of those 11 might be surprised to learn that they’re leaving.
According to the article:
Mr. [Marc] Wilson and Mr. [Graham] Beal are both cresting on the momentum that followed
their unveilings, but they are among the many directors who cite
exhaustion as the main reason for their departures.
While they do sound somewhat exhausted, those two have not announced, as far as I know, that they are stepping down from the top spots at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, respectively. And I doubt that Spears, who quoted them at length in her insightful article, is trying to push them out. I suspect this may be a case of the editorial gremlins-at-work, mistakenly lumping those two names with the many directors cited by her who DID throw in the towel.
Guest blogger Martin Filler will have more to say on the substantive issues raised by Spears’ article, COMING TOMORROW.