Okay, I knew this.
Last week, I contacted Max Hollein, who this afternoon has just been named (by Robin Pogrebin, at the above link) as the Metropolitan Museum’s next director, effective this summer. (Press release from the Met came shortly after the NY Times piece, and perhaps others that I didn’t see, went online.)
Photo by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
I had asked Max last Wednesday if he could send me his private (non-museum) email, which he promptly did, using that opportunity to hype his current museum’s (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s) just opened “major and important show on American Precisionism [my link, not his]…which I believe is also extremely timely, especially here in the Bay Area amidst the next industrial revolution.”
I thanked Max for the promotional pitch (which was accompanied by an invitation to visit) and sent him a sensitive query, to which, uncharacteristically, he did not respond (for now obvious reasons: The Met’s board formally voted on him today).
Here’s what I wrote:
I wanted to write confidentially because something that I saw on my blog stats led me to believe that you might be in the running for the Metropolitan Museum directorship.
Can you tell me if that’s so? (I remember you debunked the rumors last time!)
I imagine they will be making a decision soon. Heard anything? I hope they’ll find someone who will be in it for the long haul [emphasis added].”
I’m guessing that Hollein will “be in it for the long haul” (which he wasn’t at FAMSF, where he assumed his post less than two years ago), unless the Met’s unorthodox administrative structure, making him second-in-command to Met President Daniel Weiss on the organizational chart, proves to be an issue. These are two strong, very smart leaders, and Hollein is used to calling the shots.
CultureGrrl readers already know what I think about Hollein: here, here, here and here.