UPDATE: Michael Taylor promptly replied to my post:
This is an ongoing situation and all I can say right now is that: “I have left my position as Director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College to pursue other career opportunities.”
Under mysterious circumstances, Michael Taylor has abruptly exited Dartmouth’s Hood Museum, which he directed since 2011, after having served as curator of modern art at the Philadelphia Museum.
So far, no one is saying why he’s left the building.
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
I have made no secret of my admiration for Taylor and was both baffled and dismayed by this news.
I have sent queries to several sources. All I know at this writing is what I read this morning in Trouble in the Hood, a post by Joseph Asch, picked up by the Boston Globe, which first appeared on Dartblog, a daily news publication produced by the college’s alumni and students. (Asch is Class of ’79.)
Dartblog reported:
Rumors are swirling about that Michael Taylor, the erstwhile director of the Hood Museum of Art, has been dismissed — just months before the start of the museum’s $50 million expansion and renovation. This terse, somewhat awkward e-mail was sent out by Provost Dever yesterday:
March 16, 2015
Dear One Dartmouth,
I write to tell you that Michael Taylor is no longer in the role of director of the Hood Museum of Art.
While we conduct a nationwide search for the next Hood director, I’m pleased to announce that, beginning immediately, Juliette Bianco ‘94, deputy director at the museum, will serve as its interim director.
Juliette has had an impressive tenure at the Hood, serving as assistant director from 2005 until 2013, when she was appointed deputy director. Before that, she served as exhibitions manager, a job she began in 1998. After graduating from Dartmouth, Juliette received a master’s degree in art history from the University of Chicago.
Sincerely,
Carolyn Dever
Provost
When I requested further details, I got this non-response from Dartmouth spokesperson Justin Anderson:
You are correct. Michael Taylor is no longer in the role of director. Deputy director Juliette Bianco is serving as interim director while we conduct a national search to fill the role on a permanent basis.
As you know, Dartmouth is fortunate to have a museum of the Hood’s caliber as part of our institution. In addition to the important exhibits, such as “Men of Fire” that you reference [reviewed by me in 2012 for the Wall Street Journal and CultureGrrl], it adds a critical dimension to scholarship and research by students and faculty in the arts, and spurs creativity in the work of every department and discipline at Dartmouth.
We look forward to a very bright future for the Hood.
In a subsequent email, which ignored the questions asked in my detailed follow-up, Anderson said only this:
Dartmouth is committed to the expansion and renewal of the Hood. In fact, earlier this month, the College’s Board of Trustees approved $8.5 million for completion of design and preconstruction activities for the project.
As it happens, the museum has been closed since Monday for “annual building maintenance, to reopen on Mar. 30. When approved by the college’s trustees in 2014, construction of the Hood’s expansion, designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien, was expected to begin in April 2016, with completion in 2018 (as reported in the student newspaper). Dartblog reported that the capital project was to commence in “just months.” Anderson, the college’s spokesperson, declined to provide clarification about this discrepancy when I requested it.
When Taylor had first talked to me about the Hood’s expansion in 2012, he had said it would open in Spring 2015. (That would be now.)
Let’s join Michael in better days, at the Philadelphia Museum, where he was the star of one of my most popular CultureGrrl Videos ever. Here’s his elucidation of the Whitney Museum’s “The Artist and His Mother,” a highlight of the Philadelphia Museum’s majestic 2009 Gorky retrospective, which he brilliantly curated: