Moderna Museet Director, Lars Nittve, to Retire in October

STOCKHOLM.- On 31 October, 2010, the contract for the Director of Moderna Museet, Lars Nittve, ends. Mr Nittve will resign from the post in accordance with the regulations for all senior civil service posts in Sweden.

2001-2010, when Mr Nittve was Director, has been an extraordinarily eventful – and successful – period in the museum’s 52 years. Besides some 150 large and small exhibitions covering the entire 20th century, including highlights such as Paul McCarthy, Max Ernst, Andy Warhol, Andreas Gursky, Dalí Dalí featuring Francesco Vezzoli, Karin Mamma Andersson and Robert Rauschenberg, to name but a few, Moderna Museet has, during these years:

• doubled its attendance from an average of between 250,000 and 280,000 visitors to between 500,000 and 575,000 (2009).

• tripled the membership of the Friends of the Moderna Museet.

• in 2002, created the donation group 100 Friends, an exclusive club for patrons of the museum, which has been extraordinarily generous (see below).

• in 2007, created The American Friends of the Moderna Museet Inc, a US-based group of supporters of the museum.

• received donations in cash and art for the collection on an unprecedented level, amounting to approximately 430 million SEK (62 million USD).

• in 2008, opened the Pontus Hultén Study Gallery designed by Renzo Piano – an innovative, robot-aided “third place” for art, somewhere between a warehouse and a gallery.

• during 2002-2004, operated a hugely successful “nomadic museum”, Moderna Museet c/o, while the Rafael Moneo building on Skeppsholmen in Stockholm was undergoing a two-year renovation. Attendance to this museum without a building, which appeared c/o various venues around Sweden, was actually higher than in previous “normal” years, and Moderna Museet was appointed Museum of the Year in 2003.

• in 2006-2008, carried out a radical campaign, “The Second Museum of our Wishes”, addressing the gender imbalance, especially with regard to the early 20th century part of the collection, and adding 24 key works by seminal women artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago, Hilma af Klint, Lee Lozano, Alice Neel, Lioubov Popova and Dorothea Tanning.

• in 2009, opened an already acclaimed new branch of Moderna Museet, Moderna Museet Malmö, in southern Sweden.

In a comment, Mr Nittve says: “I am amazed by how quickly these years have passed – but also by what we have achieved in just over eight years. And remember; there are still a few months to go, with some great exhibitions like Lee Lozano, Keren Cytter, Ed Ruscha and not forgetting the second edition of the Moderna exhibition, coming up.”

The Swedish Ministry of Culture has just begun its search for Lars Nittve’s successor.

Related posts:

1. Former Moderna Museet Director Lars Nittve to Head Museum Plus in Hong Kong
2. Private Collectors Make Fantastic Donations of Photographic Art to Moderna Museet
3. Marcel Duchamp and Early Modernism on View at the Moderna Museet in Malmo
4. Exhibition shows the backbone of Moderna Museet’s Marcel Duchamp collection
5. Largest-Ever Exhibition in Scandinavia of the Work of Alice Neel at Moderna Museet Malmö