Hasta La Ideas

Two pieces of news coming from two museums we’ve been reporting on recently. First, Rhode Island School of Design‘s Museum of Art‘s director Hope Alswang, who we just quoted a short time ago as she explained the museum’s reasons for closing for the month of August, has announced that she is resigning, effective immediately (the school’s press release announcing the retirement is here in PDF form). Alswang gave no specific reason for the exit, saying only that she is leaving to “pursue other opportunities.” Ann Woolsey, the museum’s current assistant director for planning, has stepped in as the interim director. And second, speaking of interim directors, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who was last seen battling Fisk University over the sale of several paintings they were given by O’Keeffe, have named Carl Brown as their temporary replacement for their former director, George G. King. Brown was the director of finance and human resources at the museum and will be taking over until a full-time replacement for King can be found.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ever since this writer moved to Chicago, he’s been continually impressed by the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art. And that was largely due to chief curator Elizabeth Smith‘s careful crafting of the museum’s exhibitions. So it worries us a little to see the announcement that Smith has decided to step down and will be resigning as of August 31st. Although the museum’s president, Madeleine Grynsztejn, has told the Chicago Tribune that Smith’s decision to leave had nothing to do with “creative differences or economic troubles posed by the recession,” this writer is a full-time, jaded skeptic who always thinks the opposite of whatever some public figure is assuring them is not the case (like in this instance or with Sarah Palin‘s divorce). It does sound a little less suspicious if you read the Sun Times, with Smith saying “A decade is a good long time to be somewhere. It’s been a great 10 years, but I feel like it’s time to move on” but we shall remain ever vigil in our baseless speculations, dear readers. For now all that’s left to do is miss Ms. Smith and wish her and the museum all the best. Here’s a bit:

Her major exhibitions include a widely praised 2004 retrospective of the artist Lee Bontecou and a 2008 survey of the work of artist Jenny Holzer. She also organized architecture and design exhibitions such as the 1999 show “At the End of the Century: 100 Years of Architecture,” for which she served as co-curator.

Grynsztejn said she plans to seek a replacement with a comparably broad background.

“I want to hire someone of curatorial excellence whose communications are accessible and embracing to a large audience beyond that of the current MCA community,” she said.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Last we checked in with the Art Center College of Design, all was not well in Pasadena. Everyone—students, faculty, alumni, staff, and trustees—seemed to have something to gripe about, from the planned Frank Gehry-designed design research center to the widespread changes wrought by the school’s fourth President, Richard Koshalek, who was replaced last fall by interim president Frank L. Ellsworth. Today the college announced a permanent replacement, appointing Lorne M. Buchman (at right) president and CEO. Buchman was “unanimously selected by the Board following the enthusiastic recommendation of a committee of faculty members, students, trustees, and staff that conducted an international search over the past ten months,” noted the Art Center in a press release.

Buchman previously served as the provost and then president of California College of Arts and Crafts, where he spearheaded the 1994 strategic plan that led to the creation of its renowned San Francisco campus, so you know he’s handy with a capital campaign. In his most recent position as president of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, Buchman led a plan to transform from a graduate school to a multidisciplinary university. Meanwhile, Buchman will bring a different kind of drama to the Art Center: he’s a trainer theatre director and scholar as well as the author of a book on filmic adaptations of Shakespeare‘s plays. Can Buchman quiet The Tempest at the Art Center? For now, it’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream—he doesn’t take office until October.

Previously on UnBeige:

A big move at one of the biggest creative awards shows around, the D&AD has announced that they’ve appointed Tim O’Kennedy as their new chief executive. O’Kennedy, who has worked at nearly every hot ad agency since the 1980s, including spending time working on Nike‘s launch of “Just Do It”, comes to the position from the agency Perfect Fools in Sweden. He’ll now be overseeing the entire awards, making sure that it stays up top in the business of giving creative things recognition. Here’s a bit from Brand Republic:

He said: I feel honoured to take the reins at this amazing organisation, which has always lived in my mind as the absolute reference for creativity in the communication arts. D&AD’s multi-disciplinary purview is a big part of the appeal for me.”

Anthony Simonds-Gooding, the D&AD chairman, said: Tim will bring an entrepreneurial mindset and fresh thinking to D&AD, which will take the organisation into new territory. His wealth of international experience will help cement the company’s position in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

He’s no Banksy, for sure, but we guess maybe we should just give up on that rumor now.

While we were all excited about the opening of the Droog retail shop in New York back in February, it appears that its creation was also marking something of a massive fallout for the famous Dutch collective. Gijs Bakker, one of the co-founders of Droog Design, has announced that this recent move into retail has driven him to resign from the organization, claiming that the group has since lost the focus he wanted it to have. A big, big change for Droog, which has been held in incredibly high regard since its founding in the early 90s. Here’s a bit of his resignation announcement from designboom, who has the full statement:

“The original ambition of Droog was to identify and showcase talented dutch, and later foreign, designers, and to stimulate discussion about the real content of the profession. Millions of Euros were invested in opening a large, expensive shop in New York — an initiative of Renny Ramakers — while the philosophy of Droog was pushed to the background. The shop in New York implies, almost inevitably, that from now on profitability will depend on the development of only large, expensive products.”

Although he finishes by saying some kind things about his time at Droog, it certainly isn’t a letter full of butterflies and roses, not in the slightest.