휘트니뮤지엄을 20여년간 이끌어온 아담 D. 와인버그(Adam D. Weinber) 관장이 현 임기를 마치는 10월 31일 부로 물러난다. 11월 1일부터 현 수석 부관장이자 수석 큐레이터 스캇 로스코프(Scott Rothkopf)가 새 관장으로 부임할 예정이다. 하버드대에서 미술사를 전공한 후 건축학으로 석사학위를 받은 을 스캇 로스코프는 2009년 휘트니에 입사해 재스퍼 존스, 로라 오웬스, 제프 쿤스, 웨이드 가이톤 등의 특별전을 기획했다. 

 

 

Whitney Museum Announces Forthcoming Departure of Adam D. Weinberg After 20 Years as Alice Pratt Brown Director

 

WHITNEY MUSEUM ANNOUNCES FORTHCOMING DEPARTURE OF ADAM D. WEINBERG AFTER AN EPOCH-MAKING 20 YEARS AS ALICE PRATT BROWN DIRECTOR

Scott Rothkopf Is Appointed to Serve as Next Director, Beginning November 1, 2023

 

Adam D. Weinberg /  Scott Rothkopf

 

New York, NY, March 8, 2023 — Richard M. DeMartini and Fern Kaye Tessler, Chairman and President of the Whitney Museum of American Art, announced today that Adam D. Weinberg plans to step down as museum director at the end of his current contract, on October 31, 2023. This concludes some 30 years of high-level leadership positions at the Whitney, including the last 20 as the Alice Pratt Brown Director.

 

Planning carefully for the transition, the Board of Trustees has confirmed that Scott Rothkopf, the Museum’s current Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator, will become the Alice Pratt Brown Director on November 1, 2023, following Mr. Weinberg’s departure.

 

During this period, Mr. Weinberg will work with Scott Rothkopf on the transition and continue to realize ongoing projects he has initiated, including the adaptive renovation of the Roy Lichtenstein Studio and Residence as the first permanent home of the Whitney’s Independent Study Program.

 

In a statement on behalf of the Board, Mr. DeMartini, Ms. Tessler, and Executive Committee Chairman Robert Hurst said, “Adam has been a once-in-a-generation Director for the Whitney, involved with the Museum for three decades of its nearly 100-year history. He has elevated the institution in every way and positioned it for continuing success under the leadership of Scott Rothkopf. The Board expresses its profound gratitude to Adam for the boldness of his vision, the brilliance of his inspiration, and the exceptional combination of effectiveness and personal generosity he brought to bear in transforming the Whitney.”

 

In recognition of Adam Weinberg’s achievements, the Board is honoring him with the new title of Director Emeritus, and he will become an Honorary Trustee.

 

Adam Weinberg said, “It has been the greatest joy and privilege of my life to lead the Whitney for all these years, working with its deeply committed and caring Trustees, its superb and mission-driven staff, and the inspiring and devoted community of artists, so that we could serve the people of New York and the world of contemporary art and ideas. Even as I now step aside to take on new opportunities in the cultural community, as everyone knows, my heart will always be with the Whitney.”

 

On behalf of the Board, Mr. DeMartini, Ms. Tessler, and Mr. Hurst said, “We are extraordinarily fortunate to be able to promote from within the Whitney by appointing Scott Rothkopf, who has worked under Adam Weinberg for 13 years, to serve as our next Alice Pratt Brown Director. The deftness and strength Scott has demonstrated over this time in his involvement with every aspect of the Museum’s activities, combined with his widely admired curatorial expertise, make him the best imaginable choice to lead the Whitney into its future.”

 

Scott Rothkopf said, “I am tremendously grateful to the Board for the opportunity to further serve this extraordinary institution and to build on Adam’s remarkable legacy. Since joining its unsurpassed staff, I’ve been devoted to the Whitney and everything it stands for: a profound commitment to artists; courage and openness to change; a deep care for audiences and community; and a warm and inclusive spirit. We’re extremely well poised for the next chapter, which promises to be more vital and relevant than ever.”

 

ABOUT ADAM D. WEINBERG

Adam Weinberg’s time as director was marked by the relocation of the Museum from the Upper East Side to the Meatpacking District in a new downtown building designed by Renzo Piano, which opened to acclaim in 2015. Mr. Weinberg worked with the Board to complete a $765 million capital campaign and oversaw the design development on a project that was triple the size of the Whitney’s uptown location and gave the Museum its first theater, education center, study center, and conservation center. The new Whitney enabled a major expansion of the curatorial program and a renewed engagement between the Museum and the artistic and social milieu of Downtown Manhattan.

 

Under Mr. Weinberg’s leadership, annual attendance at the Whitney grew from 400,000 to 1.2 million (pre-pandemic), membership from 12,000 to 50,000, and the endowment from $40 million to more than $400 million. The staff increased from 200 to more than 400 and became more diverse, as did the Board of Trustees, which expanded during his tenure and added artist members Julie Mehretu and Fred Wilson. Most important of all, the Whitney rose to a new role in its city and the cultural world.

 

During the course of his directorship, Mr. Weinberg oversaw the presentation of more than 300 exhibitions, including nine editions of the Whitney’s signature Biennial and large-scale installations of the permanent collection, including the inaugural exhibition in the Downtown Whitney, America is Hard to See. Major Whitney-organized exhibitions explored the works of dozens of artists—senior (such as Frank Stella, Carmen Herrera, and Lawrence Weiner), mid-career (such as Julie Mehretu, Roni Horn, and Lorna Simpson), and historic (such as Gordon Matta-Clark, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Edward Hopper). Mr. Weinberg initiated the first strategic plan for the Whitney’s collection, built the collection endowment from $2 million to more than $27 million, and brought nearly 4,000 works into the Whitney’s holdings, including masterworks by Carmen Herrera, Jasper Johns, Norman Lewis, Archibald Motley, and the Roy Lichtenstein Study Collection.

 

Under Mr. Weinberg’s direction, the Whitney’s commitment to living artists has been paramount, with an expansion of its emerging artist exhibitions and programs as well as the introduction of the comprehensive artist payment program (including provisions that made the Whitney the first museum to pay honoraria to artists for displaying works in the collection). The Museum also reaffirmed the central importance of its fifty-plus-year Independent Study Program through the establishment of a permanent home for the Program at the Roy Lichtenstein Studio—a gift of Dorothy Lichtenstein—and its first artist-in-residence apartment and studio, which has been added to the Lichtenstein Studio.

 

Among Mr. Weinberg’s other achievements, he initiated and managed the project to create the largest permanent project by artist David Hammons, Day’s End, at Pier 52, adjacent to the Downtown Whitney; and arranged for the collaborations with the Met and the Frick at the Whitney’s Upper East Side Breuer building.

 

A graduate of Brandeis University (BA) and the Visual Studies Workshop, SUNY Buffalo (MFA), Adam Weinberg began his career at the Walker Art Center, where he served as Director of Education and Assistant Curator. He joined the Whitney for the first time in 1989 as Director of the Whitney branch at the Equitable Center. After assuming the post of Artistic and Program Director of the American Center in Paris in 1991, he returned to the Whitney in 1993 as Curator of the Permanent Collection and was made Senior Curator in 1998. From 1999 to 2003, he served as the Mary Stripp and R. Crosby Kemper Director of the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, Andover. He was named Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney in 2003.

 

Mr. Weinberg serves as a board member of Storm King Art Center, the American Academy in Rome, the Terra Foundation for American Art, and the Star of Hope Foundation and has been a past board member of the American Federation of the Arts, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Colby College Art Museum, the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, and the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. He is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Archives of American Art, the Scientific Committees of the Sebançi Museum in Istanbul and The Art Mill Museum in Doha, and a member of the Director Selection Commission of the MADRE Museum in Naples. He served as the Chair of the Visiting Committee for the Harvard University Art Museums, a member of the Art Committee of Madison Square Park Conservancy, and a member of the Committee of Selection of The Pollock-Krasner Foundation.

 

Mr. Weinberg has received honorary PhDs from Colby College, Hamilton College, and the Pratt Institute. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received numerous awards, including the Merit Award from The American Institute of Architects, the Rudin Award for Exemplary Service to New York City from New York University, and the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2015, he was awarded the Insignia of Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.

 

ABOUT SCOTT ROTHKOPF

Scott Rothkopf, the designated Alice Pratt Brown Director, joined the Whitney as a curator in 2009 and was promoted to Curator and Associate Director of Programs in 2012. Following the opening of the new building in 2015, he was appointed Deputy Director for Programs and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator. He became Senior Deputy Director in 2018, a role which gave him oversight of multiple teams, including publications, exhibitions, and collection management, as well as broad responsibility for Museum-wide strategic planning, as a member of the senior management and policy-making team.

 

Educated at Harvard, where he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in the history of art and architecture, Mr. Rothkopf began his curatorial career at the Harvard University Art Museums, where he served as a guest curator of exhibitions devoted to the work of Mel Bochner (2002) and Pierre Huyghe (2004). In 2001, he began publishing reviews and feature articles for Artforum International, where he served as Senior Editor from 2004–2009. Since coming to the Whitney, he has curated and co-curated more than a dozen exhibitions, including Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror (2021–22), Nick Mauss: Transmissions (2018), Laura Owens (2017), Open Plan: Andrea Fraser (2016), Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection (2016), Virginia Overton: Sculpture Gardens (2016), Mary Heilmann: Sunset (2015), Jeff Koons: A Retrospective (2014), Sinister Pop (2012–13), Wade Guyton OS (2012–13), Glenn Ligon: AMERICA (2011), and Singular Visions (2010).

 

Since joining the Whitney, Rothkopf has worked with the Museum’s Painting and Sculpture Acquisition Committee and since 2015 has led that group in acquiring works by both emerging artists and historical figures, including American Artist, Gertrude Abercrombie, Kevin Beasley, Carol Bove, Judy Chicago, Wade Guyton, Tishan Hsu, Norman Lewis, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Mika Tajima, Amy Sherald, and Kay WalkingStick. Under his tenure as Chief Curator, the Curatorial Department has undertaken many landmark initiatives, including the creation of the Museum’s first Collection Strategic Plan; the founding of an Indigenous Artist Working Group to inform the program and collection; the inauguration of a Digital Art Acquisition Committee; and the hiring and promotion of more than a dozen curators to advance the Whitney’s artistic vision.

 

Beyond the Whitney, Mr. Rothkopf has published widely on the work of contemporary artists including Paul Chan, Diller and Scofidio, Carroll Dunham, Katharina Fritsch, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Josiah McElheny, Takashi Murakami, Laura Owens, Elizabeth Peyton, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Paul Thek, Kelley Walker, T. J. Wilcox, Terry Winters, and Karen Kilimnik. He also served as editor of Yourself in the World (2011), a volume of the collected writings and interviews of Glenn Ligon. He has been a guest critic, lecturer, and panelist at numerous institutions, including the Dallas Museum of Art, Harvard University, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Canada, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Stanford University, and the Yale School of Art. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation.