Anne Pasternak, the president and artistic director of the public arts non-profit Creative Time, will be the next director of the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Pasternak succeeds Arnold Lehman, who is retiring this summer after 17 years at the helm of the encyclopaedic museum. The appointment, which had been rumoured for some time, was made final on Tuesday after a vote by the board of trustees.
Pasternak has worked in the non-profit art world for more than 20 years, but she has never held a full-time job at a museum. During her 19-year tenure at Creative Time, she organised ambitious public art projects in each of New York’s five boroughs and developed a reputation for socially engaged programming that attracted diverse audiences. She also grew the organisation from a staff of one (Pasternak herself) to a staff of 25 and increased its annual budget exponentially, from $350,000 to around $5m, according to the New York Times.
“Anne brings to us her broad and deep experience working with world-class artists and in collaboration with cultural and government institutions throughout the city,” says Barbara Manfrey Vogelstein, the search committee co-chair, in a statement.
Under Pasternak’s leadership, Creative Time organised a performance of Waiting for Godot in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina; Tribute in Light<, the twin beacons of light shooting from the former World Trade Center site after 9/11; and an exhibition of work by Kara Walker inside the former Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg. Walker's giant sphinx statue made entirely of sugar drew more than 130,000 visitors in two months.
The museum consultant András Szántó called Pasternak’s appointment “fantastic news for Brooklyn and for museums in general. She is undaunted by challenges, takes an expansive and inclusive view of museums and art, is a proven fundraiser, and a passionate spokesperson for art's role in the larger social conversation.”
Pasternak is the first woman to lead one of New York’s two encyclopaedic museums and one of only six women to lead a US museum with an annual budget of $20m or more. The Brooklyn Museum has an annual budget of $35m and a staff of more than 300. Pasternak will begin her new role on 1 September.