WIKIMEDIA
It has been a wild week for Metropolitan Museum of Art–related news. On Wednesday, word came in across the transom that one of the Met’s former directors, Philippe de Montebello, would take a job as a director at Acquavella Galleries, the powerhouse Upper East Side space, and yesterday it was announced that its most recent former director, Thomas Campell, had been selected for the Getty Rothschild Fellowship.
Now today brings tidings of in-house staff changes the Met. Here are those shifts:
- Quincy Houghton, the Met’s associate director for exhibitions for the past year, has been promoted to deputy director of exhibitions. Houghton came to the museum from the Getty Museum last year.
- Dita Amory, who has spent the past 10 years as acting curator in charge of the Robert Lehman Collection, is now the the curator in charge and administrator of the Robert Lehman Collection.
- Kim Benzel has been tapped to be curator in charge for the department of ancient Near Eastern art. Benzel has held various positions at the museum since coming aboard in 1990.
- Jayson Dobney, formerly the associate curator and administrator for musical instruments at the Met, is now curator in charge for the department. He’s been at the museum for a decade.
- Janina Poskrobko, a 17-year veteran of the museum, who has spent 14 of those years focused on the care of the textile and carpet collection of the Department of Islamic Art, has been named conservator in charge for textile conservation.
The big question now, of course, is who will take up the directorship vacated by Campbell, in a number-two slot below Weiss. We shall see.