The Whitney Museum of American Artwork’s longtime director Adam Weinberg will leave later this 12 months, the establishment introduced nowadays. Weinberg might be succeeded by means of the museum’s present senior deputy director and leader curator, Scott Rothkopf, on November 1.
Weinberg has helmed the Whitney since 2003, and his 20-year tenure used to be marked by means of a large number of institutional adjustments and controversies. The museum moved from the Higher East Facet to a contemporary Renzo Piano development within the Meatpacking District in 2015. Two years later, the Whitney Biennial’s inclusion of Dana Schultz’s polarizing oil portray of the overdue Emmett Until laying mutilated in his casket drew protests calling for the paintings’s removing and destruction.
In 2018, Hyperallergic reported that Whitney trustee and benefactor Warren Kanders owned Safariland, a protection guns producer that produced tear fuel canisters for US border patrol brokers to deploy on loads of migrants on the San Diego-Tijuana border. Days after Hyperallergic’s preliminary file, over 100 museum workforce individuals produced and signed an open letter hard that the museum recognize the indexed allegations. This precipitated an equivalent portions defensive and dismissive letter from Weinberg during which he mentioned that “we will have to reside throughout the rules of society and apply the ‘laws’ of our Museum.”
In reaction, activist workforce Decolonize This Position — along side a number of different organizations — staged a “9 Weeks of Artwork and Motion” protest main as much as the 2019 Whitney Biennial to call for that the museum sever ties with Kanders, who sooner or later resigned that June.
In its announcement nowadays, the museum credit Weinberg with rising the Whitney’s attendance, club, and staffing numbers in addition to its endowment, which has reached over $400 million. However Weinberg’s tenure additionally witnessed a grueling exertions battle. In April 2020, the museum laid off 76 staff in anticipation of pandemic-induced monetary losses, brushing aside any other 15 workers the following 12 months, leading to a 20% slash to workforce. Bringing up unlivable wages and process lack of confidence, Whitney workforce introduced their intent to unionize in Might 2021, and the Whitney Museum Union used to be formally known two weeks later. Staff then bargained with management for 16 months (and held high-profile protests) till simply previous this week, when the union after all secured its first contract.
Consistent with the Whitney’s press commentary, Weinberg will turn out to be an honorary trustee of the museum’s board. He’ll proceed to paintings on initiatives, such because the transformation of the Roy Lichtenstein Studio and Place of abode into the primary everlasting house of the Whitney’s Unbiased Find out about Program, till his departure as director q4.
Hailing from Dallas with a point in artwork historical past from Harvard College, Scott Rothkopf joined the Whitney as a curator in 2009. He has arranged plenty of exhibitions on the museum, together with Jasper Johns: Thoughts/Reflect (2021 to 2022), Laura Owens (2017 to 2018), and Glenn Ligon: The usa (2011).
