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WELLESLEY,
Mass. - David Mickenberg has been named Ruth Gordon
Shapiro '37 Director of the Davis Museum and Cultural Center
at Wellesley College. Mickenberg, who has been director
of the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University for
14 years, will assume his new post at Wellesley full time
in January after a period of transition this fall. In addition
to his museum duties, he will hold an academic appointment
as senior lecturer in art. Mickenberg succeeds Susan M.
Taylor who left Wellesley last summer to become the director
of The Art Museum, Princeton University.
"David Mickenberg is an intellectually-engaging collaborator
with great energy and enthusiasm and an impressive record
of achievement," said President Diana Chapman Walsh in announcing
the appointment. "The search committee which included trustees,
senior staff, faculty, and museum professionals was particularly
impressed by his success at Northwestern in integrating
the museum's collections and programs with the university's
educational and scholarly activities. We anticipate that
he will continue to strengthen the role of the Davis as
a catalyst of explorations across boundaries that separate
disciplines, departments, and other perspectives on the
campus and beyond."
At Northwestern, Mickenberg spearheaded a $25 million fund
raising effort for the redesign, expansion and endowment
of the Block Museum, which re-opened one year ago. He implemented
an international guest curatorial program and a summer curatorial
internship program in technology and curatorial development.
He oversaw exhibitions that traveled throughout the United
States and Europe and implemented interdisciplinary programming
in conjunction with all exhibitions. He was one of the authors
of the catalogue and organizers of the exhibition, Printmaking
in America: Collaborative Prints and Presses 1960-1990,
which opened at the Block in 1995 and then subsequently
traveled to the National Museum of American Art, Washington,
D.C. He was the co-curator of the exhibition, Emigrants
and Exiles: A Lost Generation of Austrian Artists in America,
1920-1950, which opened at the Osterreichische Galerie in
Vienna in 1996 and then was seen at the Block Museum later
that year. He is currently the curator of the project, The
Last Expression: Art and Auschwitz, scheduled to open in
September 2002 and then travel in the United States and
Europe.
In the museum's new space, Mickenberg incorporated a digital
gallery and classroom for technology-based arts projects,
created a print, drawing and photography study center, moved
the museum into close collaboration with the Center for
Art and Technology and the Center for Interdisciplinary
Research in the Arts at Northwestern, and developed partnerships
with numerous departments and programs at the university.
In collaboration with Northwestern's Academic Technologies
unit, Mickenberg developed such interactive multimedia projects
as the web site for The Last Expression Project (http://lastexpression.northwestern.edu),
The Wall of Respect (www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/wallofrespect)
and Picturing Music, the latter two a product of the summer
internship program in curatorial practices and technology.
Under his leadership the collections of the Block Museum
of Art were dramatically expanded. He opened a major sculpture
garden in 1989 with works by Joan Miro, Hans Arp, Henry
Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Jacques Lipchitz, Arnoldo Pomodoro
and has subsequently added works to the sculpture collection
by Peter Reginato, Bryan Hunt, Lynn Chadwick, and Deborah
Butterfield. The museum's collections of works on paper
also have dramatically expanded on the areas of contemporary
American and European works, the history of the arts in
Chicago, and old masters.
Before his tenure at Northwestern, Mickenberg served as
executive director of the Oklahoma Museum of Art during
a period of major growth for the institution. He received
his BA with honors in art history from Colgate University
and his master's degree in art history from the University
of Wisconsin. He also has undertaken additional graduate
studies in medieval architectural history at Indiana University.
At Northwestern, he has taught courses on museum architecture
and on the politics and ethics of museums, has taught in
the American Studies Program and in the Center for Art and
Technology, and has lectured on international issues in
arts administration.
"I am excited to be joining an academic community that has
such an extraordinary commitment, at all levels of leadership,
to the role of a museum on a college campus," said Mickenberg
in accepting the appointment. "I look forward to working
with the talented staff of the Davis Museum and with the
faculty and students at Wellesley."
The director's position is named for Ruth Gordon Shapiro,
a graduate of the Wellesley College class of 1937, who,
with her husband Carl J. Shapiro, endowed the position last
year with a gift of $1,000,000. Currently living in Palm
Beach, Florida, the Shapiros were long-time residents of
the Boston area, where they continue to be prominent supporters
of arts, medical, and educational institutions.
The Davis Museum and Cultural Center's origins go back to
1889, when the Wellesley College Museum was founded in the
Farnsworth Art Building. In 1993, it moved into a new building
designed by Rafael Moneo and became the Davis Museum and
Cultural Center after Shelby and Kathryn Davis, its principal
donors. Its exhibitions and programs serve both the campus
community and the public and are known for their innovations
and fresh approach to art.
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