Browsing the PMA’s press site looking for info on the upcoming African art show, I came across this sleeper of a release I either didn’t get or slept through: The PMA has apparently split the top curatorial position in Modern and Contemporary Art into two slots: one for modern and one for contemporary art. (image is “Lion stool,” Ghana, (after 1957) from the African art show which opens Oct. 2.)
And, they’ve appointed Michael Taylor to the modern position. He’s the newly-created Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, a position specializing in art of the first half of the 20th Century.
Taylor’s been the PMA’s acting curator of Modern and Contemporary art since Nov. 2003 when Ann Temkin left that post to become a curator at MOMA.
A Dada and Surrealism scholar whose focus is on Marcel Duchamp, Taylor is leading the curatorial charge on the upcoming major retrospective on Salvador Dali (February 16-May 15, 2005 at PMA).
Now the museum’s searching for a senior-level curator who specializes in contemporary art (the period from the mid-20th century to the present) to fill the second of the two positions.
