MoMA’s New Director Will Be Christophe Cherix

One of the world’s most important museums has selected a new leader.

The Museum of Modern Art announced to its staff on Friday morning that its next director will be Christophe Cherix, 55, a quiet curatorial strategist behind some of the institution’s most critically praised exhibitions. In September, he will take over the leadership position from Glenn Lowry, who has guided the New York museum for almost 30 years.

His appointment was unveiled in a letter from the museum’s chair, Marie-Josée Kravis, and its president, Sarah Arison. The letter says the board of trustees voted unanimously to appoint Cherix.

“Christophe’s brilliant curatorial leadership in modern and contemporary art, strong relationships with artists, excellence in scholarship, internationally respected research and publications, and reputation for steady stewardship stood out as indispensable qualities to position the museum to meet the moment,” Kravis and Arison wrote. “He rose to the top of an impressive pool of global candidates.”

Cherix came to MoMA in 2007 from Switzerland, where he had previously served as curator at an art and history museum in Geneva. He was promoted three years later to chief curator for the department of drawings and prints; he specialized in modern and contemporary art, with a particular focus on the 1960s and ’70s.

While leading the department, Cherix oversaw an ambitious exhibition program that reintroduced audiences to comical artists like Marcel Broodthaers, serious thinkers like Adrian Piper, and trailblazers like Betye Saar. One of his most recent curatorial successes, a 2023 retrospective on Ed Ruscha, the deadpan laureate of American art, received praise from reviewers, with The New York Times critic Jason Farago writing, “To call it the show of the season is something of an understatement.”