Janet Landay, newly appointed AAMD executive director
As you wing your way tomorrow to the midwinter membership meeting of the Association of Art Museum Directors in San Diego (Jan. 28-30), all you artworld luminaries should fasten your seatbelts, make sure you’ve found your flotation devices, and then turn to the “Leisure & Arts” page of your copy of tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal, where you can eavesdrop on my “cultural conversation” at the Harvard Club in New York with your association’s very articulate president, Michael Conforti.
He speaks to me of deaccessions, financial-crisis rap sessions, cultural exchanges, the importance of museums as stable havens in hard times…and, let us not forget, his son’s 17th birthday. Happily, there were no potted plants (scroll down) at the Harvard Club that Michael felt impelled to rearrange. (Now I’ve gotten him peeved at me again.)
Speaking of rearranging things, I’ve got a couple of things that I’d like AAMD to rearrange at the members’ meeting. More on that soon.
Conforti told me that topics he and his colleagues will be discussing include: deaccessioning; how contemporary art and the contemporary art market affect museums
I’m sure they’ll also be talking about their just-announced new executive director, Janet Landay, who will replace (effective Feb. 23) the long-serving Mimi Gaudieri. Landay, who has worked at five art museums and at the American Federation of Arts, is best known for her 13-year stint as curator of exhibitions and assistant to the director at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. [UPDATE: You can read more about Landay in AAMD’s press release, here.]
“We are not planning any resolutions,” Conforti told me. In that case, I’d like to suggest two. (COMING SOON)
I’ll link to my Wall Street Journal article when it’s online, probably later tonight.