Shoptalk: New Guggenheim Director Melissa Chiu on How She Got the Job
Artnet News reported on 10 April 2026 that Melissa Chiu, 54, has been appointed the next director of the Guggenheim in New York, following a quiet search led by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation director and CEO Mariët Westermann, 64. Westermann, hired in 2023 after Richard Armstrong, said the impending January opening of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi made the leadership workload too large for one person and prompted the decision to give the New York flagship its own director. Chiu has led the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden since 2014, and her major project there—a redesign of the sculpture garden by Hiroshi Sugimoto—is scheduled to be unveiled in October. Westermann said the Guggenheim’s “constellation” of sites (New York, Bilbao, Venice, and Abu Dhabi) requires a leader with both artistic and fundraising skills and an ability to work collaboratively.
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This story was covered in Museum Power Shifts and Art Crime Crackdowns