Madeleine Grynsztejn, one of many key figures of Chicago’s artwork scene, will go away her put up as director of town’s Museum of Up to date Artwork on the finish of the 12 months, bringing to an finish an 18-year-long tenure that has seen a spread of celebrated retrospectives and a dramatic enlargement of the establishment’s assortment and working funds.
In a cellphone interview, Grynsztejn identified that subsequent 12 months will mark the MCA’s sixtieth anniversary, and mentioned that she felt it was time to step apart and permit another person to take up her mantle.
“I requested myself, who needs to be on the dais in January 2027? Ought to it’s the one that introduced the museum to this second for the final 20 years, or ought to it’s the one that will take the museum ahead for the following 20 years?” Grynsztejn mentioned. “The reply was simple for me.”
She declined to specify what she would possibly do subsequent, however she mentioned that her subsequent challenge would see her “replicate my assist for artists extra straight on a bigger scale than I can dedicate now.”
Grynsztejn joined the MCA in 2008 and has since facilitated a various program bolstered by large-scale retrospectives which have drawn acclaim. Beneath her watch, the museum has finished surveys for artists akin to Doris Salcedo, Takashi Murakami, Howardena Pindell, Virgil Abloh, and Luc Tuymans; it has additionally traveled monumentally sized surveys akin to a latest one for Yoko Ono that had not visited the US earlier than the MCA took it on.
Unusually for a museum director, Grynsztejn additionally took a hands-on method together with her programming, initiating reveals akin to a 2016 survey for the painter Kerry James Marshall. The exhibition went on to journey to the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork and the Museum of Up to date Artwork Los Angeles.
“Nobody will get to guide a serious museum for eighteen years who has not demonstrated a dedication to rising the dimensions of each its viewers and its supporters whereas sustaining the very best essential and aesthetic requirements,” Marshall mentioned in an e mail to ARTnews, describing his relationship with the MCA as “a significant partnership for, myself, the museum, and the visiting viewers, alike.”
Having previously served as a senior curator of portray and sculpture on the San Francisco Museum of Trendy Artwork earlier than coming to Chicago, Grynsztejn went on to double the MCA’s working funds and achieve a spread of notable artworks for the museum’s assortment.
One of many extra notable items got here from Dimitris Daskalopoulos, a Greek collector who in 2022 gave round 100 works to the MCA, which collectively stewards most of them with the Guggenheim Museum in New York. (Some 250 different works additionally went to the Tate in London and Greece’s Nationwide Museum of Up to date Artwork.) Items by Robert Gober, Ana Mendieta, Sarah Lucas, Louise Bourgeois, Mona Hatoum, Wangechi Mutu, Paul Pfeiffer, and loads of different luminaries entered the MCA holdings in consequence. Chicago collectors Marilyn and Larry Fields, in the meantime, gave 79 works to the museum, in addition to $2 million in funding.
As a substitute of offering mass items of artworks, some collectors gave cash. In 2012 alone, the MCA obtained $10 million from Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson to call the museum’s theater, plus one other $10 million from Sam and Helen Zell. The museum ended up utilizing the Zells’ cash to fund the creation of Marisol, a Michelin-starred restaurant.
Grynsztejn mentioned the items of artworks from collectors had helped in diversifying the MCA assortment. “I grew up in locations the place I used to be excluded, both by language or different means,” she mentioned, referring to her upbringing in nations akin to Peru, Venezuela, and England. She added, “I’ve all the time been deeply, deeply invested in making a spot as warmly accessible and inclusive as potential.”
By the use of instance, she famous that the museum has an initiative particularly targeted on girls artists supposed to treatment an imbalance that is still systemic within the US, as journalists Julia Halperin and Charlotte Burns have identified. In line with the museum, greater than half of the artworks acquired since 2020 are by girls. “We would be the solely up to date artwork museum that has mandated a 50 p.c minimal women-identified artist illustration throughout all assortment acquisition and applications,” Grynsztejn mentioned.
Not each a part of her tenure has been so rosy. In 2021, for instance, Grynsztejn confronted scrutiny after practically 100 present and former workers alleged that the MCA had did not dwell as much as pledges for change made the 12 months earlier than. Furthermore, citing the affect of the pandemic, the museum laid off 41 workers in 2021. In a press release on the time, Grynsztejn expressed “remorse” for these developments, whereas additionally noting that the MCA had made its selections “to maintain the museum and the communities it serves.”
But Grynsztejn additionally mentioned that the museum had actively labored to maintain up its relations with its employees. She identified that in 2024, the museum voluntarily acknowledged its union, a primary for an establishment in Chicago. “My perception is that so long as you lean into your rules in good and dangerous instances, everybody has readability and is aware of the place you stand,” she mentioned.
Beginning this spring, the MCA’s board will now lead a search to fill the director put up, one in every of many at present open within the US. Grynsztejn is not going to be concerned in that search, one thing she mentioned was frequent for sitting museum administrators, although she is going to proceed to guide the museum whereas it’s underway.
Invoice Silverstein, the museum’s chair, mentioned in a press release, “Madeleine is among the defining leaders of her era. Her distinctive tenure has elevated the MCA Chicago to new heights—nationally and internationally—whereas remaining deeply rooted in and aware of our Chicago tradition and group.”
Grynsztejn herself vowed to stay targeted on artists after her departure. “I’ve adopted artists all my life,” she mentioned. “They’re our true north.”
