Ian Alteveer, longtime curator of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is leaving his post to chair the contemporary art department at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
“I am delighted to join the MFA at a pivotal moment in its history when the institution is about to redouble its commitment to contemporary art,” said Alteveer, who will take over the reins from Reto Thüring on September 13.
The Met, of course, is also at a pivotal moment as it prepares for the highly anticipated $500 million. renovation of its modern and contemporary wing. Alteveer’s departure follows that of Department Director Sheena Wagstaff, who released last Mayas well as that of curator Randall Griffey, who was hired the same month as chief curator of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. The Met’s modern and contemporary department is now headed by former Whitney curator David Breslin.
In the years since joining the Met in 2006, Alteveer has played a key role in shaping the museum’s contemporary art programming. Among the exhibits he brought to the museum was a famous Kerry James Marshall Retrospective in 2016 and a survey of the art of Vija Celmins the following year, both held at the museum’s former Met Breuer site on Madison Avenue (the building was recently sold at Sotheby’s for about $100 million). Other shows include the Afrofuturist period room “Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room” (2020) and “Death and the Maid,” an ongoing investigation into Cecily Brown.
