Curator in Charge, Modern and Contemporary art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art collects, studies, conserves, and presents significant works of art across all times and cultures in order to connect people to creativity, knowledge, and ideas.

The Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Since it was founded in 1870, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects. Every day, art comes alive in the Museum’s galleries and through its exhibitions and events, revealing both new ideas and unexpected connections across time and across cultures.

Responsibilities and duties:

The Curator in Charge is the leader of one of the museum’s most consequential teams of curators and collections staff.  As a department, Modern and Contemporary Art is at a pivotal moment in its history as it undertakes the planning and implementation of the new Tang Wing, whose design, construction and installation will be its central concern until about 2028.  Working closely with the Director and other key stakeholders, the Curator in Charge will take both the creative and organizational lead in all ongoing discussions and decisions with the architect and the curators and in collaboration with other curatorial departments.  When opened, the Tang Wing will be the site of a newly conceptualized presentation of the art of the 20th and 21st centuries at The Met, seen alongside other works from the encyclopedic collections of the museum.  At the same time, the Curator in Charge will continue with the traditional work of the department, including leading the staff in proposing acquisitions, organizing exhibitions and conducting research on the collections.  S/he will work alongside conservators to ensure the well-being of the collection, especially as it moves off site during the construction phase of the new wing.  The Curator in Charge will continue the department’s current path of collaboration with other curatorial departments across the building, and a global approach to collecting and exhibiting.

Primary responsibilities and duties

• Bring a strong conceptual vision for the collecting, presenting and exhibiting of Modern and Contemporary art within a museum whose collections stretch across time and the globe
• Lead and motivate a department of some thirteen curators with a significant collections and administrative team to carry out the deinstallation of the current Wallace Wing, and formulate and implement the plan for the reinstallation of the collection in the newly built Tang Wing.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships to donors, supporters, collectors, scholars and artists
• Collaborate with curators within the department and elsewhere in the museum to formulate exhibition and installation plans that open up new areas for interpretation and study, and new ways of enhancing visitor engagement
• Lead the department to acquire works of art that are the finest and most significant of their kind, with a global reach
• Direct any installation of the collections, loan exhibitions, research and acquisitions, and lead all negotiations for loans and acquisitions
• Provide oversight for staff management and administration of the department, with operational excellence essential for guiding a staff with a complex set of functions
• Work with Collections staff to organize the storage of the Collection during the period of renovation, and devise a long term storage plan for those works that are not reinstalled.
• Other related duties as assigned.

For more information, please refer to the website of organisation.