The Museum of Contemporary Arts’ Board of Trustees Wednesday announced the appointment of a former senior curator as interim director, following news of the current director’s pending departure.
Ann Goldstein worked with MOCA for 26 years at various positions, ultimately becoming senior curator, before departing in 2009. She will return to the institution on Aug. 18 as interim director.
Goldstein will replace museum Director Johanna Burton, who is leaving to take over the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
“No one knows MOCA like Ann. Her deep institutional knowledge and passion for our collection and community coupled with her international directorial expertise makes her the ideal leader to maintain the museum’s momentum,” Carolyn Clark Powers, chair of the Board of Trustees, said in a statement. “While Johanna Burton’s departure marks a moment of transition for MOCA, thanks to her leadership the museum is well positioned for the future.”
The board also announced plans to conduct an international search for the next museum director.
A Los Angeles native, Goldstein worked at MOCA from 1983 through 2009, when she took over as director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 2016 she was named deputy director and curator of modern and contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago.
“MOCA has a remarkable legacy of serving our community and I’m proud it is part of my DNA as a museum professional,” Goldstein said in a statement. “I am honored to return to MOCA and greatly look forward to helping the museum through this transition and to working in sync with the museum’s dedicated staff and board to share all that MOCA has to offer with the world.
“I am energized by the opportunity to support the museum and its programs, including the widely anticipated, extraordinary `Monuments’ exhibition, which is an essential, unprecedented, and epic project born from the visionary collaboration of artists and curators looking unflinchingly at U.S. history.”