For nearly 25 years, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles has been closely identified with its transformative director, Ann Philbin, who last year said that she planned to retire. On Monday the museum announced that it had found a worthy — if little known — successor: Zoë Ryan, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania since 2020.
Philbin, 72, will step down in November, and Ryan, 47, will take over on Jan. 1, 2025.
“She admired Annie and she’s going to continue on that path and find new routes to get further,” said Marcy Carsey, the television producer and chairman of the Hammer, which is part of the University of California, Los Angeles. “It doesn’t hurt that she has experience running a museum that’s connected to a university.”
In a telephone interview last week, Ryan called the Hammer “one of the most inventive and exciting museums in the country today,” adding that she loved its “interdisciplinarity and the expansiveness of the program.”
“The Hammer shares my values and interests,” she continued. “Its mission is artist-centered, its programs are at the intersection of art and social justice and it is connected with the university as a place of learning.”
Ryan will take over the Hammer at a time when the museum has achieved solid footing as an influential institution with an international reputation for showing contemporary art.
Its “Made in L.A.” biennial, a centerpiece of the city’s art scene since 2012, has helped fuel the careers of local artists. That exhibition has also brought attention to curators who have since gone on to lead other institutions, including Anne Ellegood, now executive director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Connie Butler, who recently became director of MoMA PS1 in Queens, N.Y.
Ellegood was widely known to have been a candidate for the Philbin position, as was Naima J. Keith, the vice president of education and public programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Los Angeles natives may be frustrated by the fact that its museums continue to look outside the city for their cultural leaders, as the Museum of Contemporary Art did in 2022 with Johanna Burton; the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art did in 2020 with Sandra Jackson-Dumont; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art did in 2006 with Michael Govan; and the Hammer did in 1999 with Philbin.
But some in the field applauded the choice. “It’s a sign of both continuity and growth,” said Adam D. Weinberg, the former longtime director of the Whitney. “I’m very excited about her.”
Carsey said Ryan will carry on the Hammer’s tradition of being a place for public discourse. “She totally gets and supports the museum being something closer to a cultural center or a community center rather than just a collection of wonderful artistic things,” the chairman said. “We need places to gather and talk about what’s going on in the world.”
The Hammer, located in the Westwood neighborhood, recently completed a $90 million renovation project, which gave the museum a prominent new entrance on Wilshire Boulevard, more gallery space and a destination restaurant.
The Hammer under Philbin has increased its annual operating budget from $6 million to $30 million, grown its endowment from $35 million to over $125 million and added more than 4,000 pieces of contemporary art to its collection.
Ryan said she is aware that she has big shoes to fill. “Annie is a legend in the field,” she said. “I’m honored to build upon this work.”
She said she had a very positive experience working with the Hammer on its 2022 retrospective for the video and performance artist Ulysses Jenkins.
At the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Ryan oversaw exhibitions with artists including Sissel Tolaas, Joanna Piotrowska and David Antonio Cruz; the creation of an annual facade commission; and expanded public engagement efforts.
Before ICA, Ryan served as the chair and curator of architecture and design at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she organized the exhibition “In a Cloud, in a Wall, in a Chair: Six Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury.” And in 2014, Ryan was the curator of the second Istanbul Design Biennial, “The Future Is Not What It Used to Be.”
Raised in Kent, England, Ryan said her parents — both teachers — taught her an appreciation for the arts. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of Sussex and a master’s in art history from Hunter College, City University of New York.
At a time when museums are involved in social justice conversations — particularly regarding the need for greater diversity in arts institutions — Ryan said she plans to be actively engaged with these issues.
“Cultural organizations have emerged as seminal players in the push to build a more just and equitable world,” she said. “Our responsibility is to listen to what communities have to tell us. It’s important for museums to take an active role in these conversations and to stay in them with authenticity and purpose.”
Some museum directors may find the affiliation with a university confining, given the added layer of governance and bureaucracy (U.C.L.A. and the Hammer jointly approved Ryan’s selection). But Ryan said being on a campus brings added value. “The brain power that you can tap into in a university,” she said, “just expands the possibilities and expands the scope of the communities you can serve.”
Ryan said she hopes to draw on the rich architectural history of Los Angeles, given her belief in “positioning architecture and design as an artistic practice.”
Sasha Suda, the director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art since 2022, said she has developed a close working relationship with Ryan and values her broad perspective. “All of these worlds are converging — design, architecture, contemporary art, craft,” Suda said. “She’s comfortable with that.”
Having never lived in Los Angeles, Ryan said she feels “the gravitational pull of L.A. in terms of an exceptional arts ecosystem.” She added, “and then of course a really growing gallery scene that I look forward to getting to know.”
As a swimmer, Ryan said she is also enthusiastic about living on the West Coast. “I love swimming in the ocean,” she said, “and I will be getting a wet suit.”
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