The Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) longtime head of drawings and prints, Christophe Cherix, has been tapped to lead the New York City institution. Taking over from outgoing director Glenn Lowry, who announced his decision to step down last fall, Cherix will start his new role in September, according to a statement today, March 28.
Born in Switzerland, Cherix studied at the University of Geneva and served as curator of the prints collection of the city’s Musée d’Art et d’Histoire before joining MoMA in 2007. In 2010, he was named chief curator of the museum’s Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, which merged with the Department of Drawings in 2013. He has overseen major shows of modern and contemporary artists including Betye Saar, Marcel Broodthaers, and Jasper Johns.
Cherix’s appointment, first reported by the New York Times, settles months of speculation about the museum’s next leader. Selected from an “international pool of impressive candidates,” according to MoMA’s press statement, the unassuming industry veteran may be seen by some as a safe choice for the controversy-ridden institution.
In an interview with Hyperallergic in February 2017, when MoMA replaced works in its permanent collection displays with pieces by artists from majority-Muslim nations targeted by Trump’s travel ban, Cherix stated that he wanted the project to be “inclusive and not disruptive.”
“It was more this idea of embracing those works within our tradition, within the narrative of our collection, within our values,” Cherix told Hyperallergic.
An aversion to disruption characterized the leadership of Glenn Lowry, whose tenure was marked by his unsympathetic views toward protesters who exposed museum donors’ ties to human rights abuses.
In 2021, amid the 10-week Strike MoMA campaign against toxic philanthropy outside the museum’s Midtown headquarters, Lowry accused the activists of plotting to “destroy MoMA.” He was also highly criticized for his failure to remove the disgraced financier Leon Black from MoMA’s board of trustees after Black’s links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed. (Black stepped down as chairman in 2021 but remains on the board to this day.)
Protests have persisted at the museum in recent years, most recently against the backdrop of a deepening climate emergency and Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza. Last February, demonstrators called for the removal of MoMA Board Chair Marie-Josée Kravis, whose husband co-founded the Kohlberg Kravis Roberts private equity firm that has invested substantially in fossil fuel assets. In the fall, pro-Palestine activists protested MoMA’s hosting of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) gala and its president, museum Honorary Chair Ronald Lauder, which frequently lobbies on behalf of Israel.
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