The New York Times: Kathy Halbreich ’71 Appointed to Help Lead the Museum of Modern Art

Shortly after announcing her retirement from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, alumna Kathy Halbreich ’71 was tapped by New York’s renowned Museum of Modern Art to help lead the 78-year old institution in a new direction. The MoMA’s director Glenn D. Lowry, as reported by the New York Times in its Thursday, September 27, 2007 article, created a position specifically for Halbreich “that will give her influence in organizing exhibitions, planning performances, and making acquisitions without assuming directorial responsibilities like fund-raising or capital expansions.”

Halbreich told the Times that her new role offered her “the greatest freedom.” She explained, “The job Glenn has sketched out for me is the cream of any director’s job,” going on to describe her coming role as the MoMA’s associate director as “the questioner.” In considering new directions for the MoMA, Halbreich began by asking “What is the role of an institution that has the most significant collection of 20th-century art in the 21st century, in a global age?”

Halbreich began her 16-year tenure at the Walker in 1991 as only the fourth director in the Center’s history. Under her leadership, the Walker diversified its audience, increased its civic and international presence, and expanded its mandate to present innovative multidisciplinary programming. More noticeably, she helped organize landmark shows, commissioned premier performing arts works, and approached multidisciplinary creators like Meredith Monk, choreographers Bill T. Jones and Sarah Michelson, jazz musicians Lester Bowie and Jason Moran, as well as the playwright and director Lee Breuer. Championing avant-garde exhibitions and performances, Halbreich is credited with broadening the Walker’s reputation as a developer of emerging talent—with many artists exhibited at the Center going on to become, as the Times reports, “superstars.”

Halbreich leaves the Walker after leading the institution through its recent Herzog & de Meuron building expansion, a successful $100 million capital campaign, and the schematic phase for a new four-acre park designed by landscape architect Michel Desvigne that will complete the Walker campus. In 2005, she received the Award for Curatorial Excellence by The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, and inclusion in ArtReview’s Power 100 list of the art world’s most influential figures.

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