The Museum of Modern Art in New York has named Christophe Cherix as its next director, succeeding Glenn Lowry, who has led the institution for three decades. The New York Times first reported the news on Friday afternoon.
Cherix has served as chief curator of MoMA’s prints and drawings department since 2013. His curatorial credits include a range of recent retrospectives that have received widespread praise.
In 2023, there was his Ed Ruscha retrospective, undertaken with Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan, for which Cherix personally facilitated the revival of the artist’s rarely seen 1970 Chocolate Room installation, which debuted at that year’s Venice Biennale. And in 2018, there was a retrospective for Adrian Piper, co-organized with David Platzker and Connie Butler, that was briefly the largest exhibition ever mounted by the institution.
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With Manuel Borja-Villel, he also organized a 2016 Marcel Broodthaers retrospective at MoMA, as well as a survey of Yoko Ono’s art of the 1960s and ’70s that he co-organized with Klaus Biesenbach.
In a letter obtained by the Times, the leaders of MoMA’s board wrote, “Christophe’s brilliant curatorial leadership in modern and contemporary art, strong relationships with artists, excellence in scholarship, internationally respected research and publications, and reputation for steady stewardship stood out as indispensable qualities to position the museum to meet the moment. He rose to the top of an impressive pool of global candidates.”
Prior to taking the reins at the drawings and prints department, he led MoMA’s prints and illustrated books department. The current drawings and prints department was the result of a merger between the prints and illustrated books team and a separate drawings team.
He first joined MoMA in 2007, having previously been curator of the Cabinet des estampes in Geneva.
Cherix will follow the conclusion of Glenn Lowry’s longtime leadership of MoMA. Lowry announced plans to depart last year, having led the museum through two renovations and one expansion. He has directed MoMA since 1995.
When Cherix was appointed chief curator of prints and illustrated books by MoMA in 2010, Lowry called him an “outstanding curator who has demonstrated leadership in organizing exhibitions and working with MoMA’s extensive collection of prints and illustrated books.”
Cherix is now the seventh person ever to direct MoMA in its nearly 100-year history.
ARTnews has reached out to MoMA for comment.