Max Hollein with Phong Bui

Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Max Hollein will discuss the role of the art museum in the context of our new social reality with Phong Bui publisher of the Brooklyn Rail.

Appointed Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in April 2018, Max Hollein is responsible for guiding the Museum’s artistic vision and all of its programming, research, and collection initiatives. An accomplished director for 20 years, Hollein oversees The Met’s curatorial, conservation, and scientific departments; exhibition and acquisition activities; education and public outreach; as well as the libraries, digital projects, publications, imaging, and design.

Prior to joining The Met, he was the Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, where his tenure was characterized by visionary programming, pioneering acquisitions, and rigorous fiscal management. Previously he simultaneously led the Schirn Kunsthalle, the Städel Museum, and the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, Germany, as Director and CEO, all of which experienced significant growth and increased attendance during his tenure.

Born in Vienna, Hollein studied at the University of Vienna (Master of Art History) and the Vienna University of Economics (Master of Business Administration). He began his career at New York’s Guggenheim Museum as Chief of Staff to the Director and six years later assumed his leadership role in Frankfurt. Hollein has published and lectured widely and has organized a number of major exhibitions in modern and contemporary art. He is a member of supervisory and advisory boards of major cultural institutions worldwide, including the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; National Gallery, Prague; and Neue Galerie, New York. Named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture in 2009 and a recipient of the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and the Arts, he received the Goethe badge of honor (the Hessian Ministry of Culture’s highest accolade) in 2016, among other international awards.

Phong Bui is an artist, writer, independent curator, Publisher and Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Rail, the River Rail, Rail Editions, and Rail Curatorial Projects. From 2007 to 2010 he served as Curatorial Advisor at MoMA PS1. His recent projects include Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, an ongoing curatorial project that was exhibited in 2019 as an official Collateral Event of the Venice Biennale and at Colby Museum in Waterville, Maine. He is a trustee of Studio in a School, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Anthology Film Archives, the Third Rail, the Miami Rail, Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Second Shift Studio Space of Saint Paul, AICA (2007-2020), and is co-founder of the Monira Foundation, a non-profit which aims to curate ongoing exhibitions and public programming at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City and beyond. Forthcoming projects include the Detroit Rail, the first U.S. retrospective of Jonas Mekas, and Occupy Industry City: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, Year 3.

In the Rail: https://brooklynrail.org/contributor/phong-bui

Website: http://www.phongbui.net/index

The New Social Environment — Daily conversations with artists, writers, filmmakers, poets around the world where we discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality.