COURTESY NEW MUSEUM
The New Museum announced today the creation of a new position at the institution–Associate Director–aimed at helping its “next phase of growth.” Dennis Szakacs will join the museum’s staff in this new role. Szakacs, most recently the director and CEO of the Orange Country Museum of Art, was formerly the New Museum’s Deputy Director from 1997 to 2003, back when the museum was still located on Broadway.
According to the museum, Szakacs “will oversee all finance- and development-related activities, and will focus on business planning and the further development of both earned and contributed income.” He will also help “spearhead major initiatives” pegged to the museum’s 40th anniversary in 2017, which also marks the institution’s tenth anniversary at its current location on the Bowery.
Lisa Phillips, the New Museum’s director, said in a statement that some of these initiatives include “a major campaign for endowment and future expansion,” this being something of a trend among most major museums in New York right now, with the Whitney having opened its new building this spring, the Metropolitan Museum taking over the Whitney’s old building on the Upper East Side in early 2016, and the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem both embarking on massive expansion projects of their own.
“Dennis’s knowledge and understanding of the New Museum’s history and unique character run very deep,” Phillips said.