After leaving the Jewish Museum in 2023, Claudia Gould has joined the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York, as its subsequent director.
The Shaker Museum homes one in every of to the world’s most vital assortment of Shaker materials tradition. It’s within the technique of setting up a brand new, $30 million flagship area to be designed by Selldorf Architects, whose current tasks embrace a renovation of New York’s Frick Assortment.
The Shakers, whose identify was derived from their tremors throughout ecstatic worship companies, have been a Christian sect that originated in England in the course of the 18th century and unfold to the USA. They have been identified for his or her communal residing and celibacy practices, their perception in gender and racial equality, and their spare structure, music, and furnishings.
In a telephone interview with ARTnews, Gould mentioned she was excited “to construct a museum from the bottom up,” a activity she described as being “an entire totally different set of challenges than restructuring a company.” In tackling this new problem, Gould is searching for “to maneuver the needle with out shifting the mission,” asking herself “the best way to push issues in a approach that’s actually surprising, but in addition spot-on.”
Gould beforehand directed New York’s Jewish Museum from 2011 to 2023. Throughout that point, she oversaw a large-scale renovation, elevated its endowment, and created a cross-disciplinary program. Previous to her tenure, she labored on the ICA Philadelphia and Artists House in New York.
“I’m excited to be right here, and in addition, it’s a really uncommon transfer for me to make,” Gould explains of her profession trajectory. “If individuals know me, they know that [this move to the Shaker Museum] makes whole sense of my ardour for design and structure, and the way I introduced this into each establishment I’ve labored in. I’ve at all times labored on the intersection of those fields, and that’s the place my ardour lies. I hope to deliver that sensibility to the Shaker Museum.”
