Good Bye Thom Collins..See you in Miami in December
The new Miami Art Museum at Museum Park, Herzog & de Meuron, Bay view MIAMI— As the world’s wheelers and dealers revel in the market madness of Basel, Switzerland, the Miami Art Museum, located not far from the grounds of Art Basel Miami Beach, has oh-so-quietly announced that it will tap Thomas “Thom” Collins as its new director. Collins, the current director of the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York, fills the vacancy left when MAM director Terry Riley announced late last year that he would resign amid speculation that the museum was having difficulty raising money for its planned $220-million new building. For Collins, who is in his 40s, the move represents the latest step in a rapid ascent in the museum world. After serving as a curatorial fellow at the Museum of Modern Art — where Riley had worked as architecture curator prior to MAM — he was appointed chief curator at Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center in 1997. He then arrived at the Neuberger in 2005.
The appointment comes two weeks after the city of Miami approved $100 million in bonds that will be used to finance the construction of a new 120,000-square-foot space designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron. At the time of his resignation, Riley told the Miami New Times: “There's a pretty long list of directors who've probably ruined their careers getting involved in a building program. It could be career tragedy.” As of May, the museum had reportedly raised $31 million of the $100 million in private funding required to complete the project.
Collins is scheduled to start at MAM in August, meaning he will be able to share in the pleasures of Art Basel Miami Beach this December. However, the museum’s new building will not be open to the revelers until 2013, assuming that Collins raises the money (and construction is completed) as scheduled.
SOURCE: http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/34960/miami-art-museum-names-thom-collins-as-director/
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