GRAU, Donatien
Living Museums. Conversations with Leading Museum Directors

As places to enjoy art, as well as institutions that have become historic, museums can also be examined through the question of who exactly heads up these temples of art. What kinds of personalities have guided the fates of these large, traditional institutions? How have they done so, and what has motivated them? What galvanizes international curators or museum employees or museum guards or the cleaning staff and how have they risen to the challenge of opening their organizations to increasingly large numbers of visitors? How much are they paid? How are class issues or harassement cases handled in the museum? How often are woman artists exhibited? Not to mention non-white artists? So many questions! 

Interviews with Michel Laclotte, Director of the Louvre, Paris, 1987–1995; Sir Alan Bowness, Director of the Tate, London, 1980–1988; Sir Timothy Clifford, Director of the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1984–2006; Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1977–2009; Irina Antonova, Director of the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, 1961–2013; Peter-Klaus Schuster, General Director of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1998–2008; Sir Mark Jones, Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London 2001–2011; Tom Krens, Director of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, Venice, and Bilbao, 1988–2008; Wilfried Seipel, General Director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1998–2008; Henri Loyrette, Director of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris (1994–2001), and the Louvre, Paris (2001–2013). 

Yes, you’re good at counting: there’s one woman in the list! 

Published by Hatje Cantz, 2020
Conversations / Curatorial Studies