Madeleine Grynsztejn
Encyclopedia
Madeleine Grynsztejn is the Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
. Grynsztejn became director in 2008.
in Paris and received her BA in art history and French from Newcomb College of Tulane University
. She received her MA in art history from Columbia University
. Grynsztejn is fluent in English, Spanish, and French. Her husband, Tom Shapiro, is a strategic consultant
to non-profits.
A former Helena Rubenstein Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art
, Grynsztejn has been a lecturer, interviewee, moderator, and panelist on film, TV, radio, Web, and other public forums on art-related topics. She is a 2007 graduate of the Getty Foundation
’s Museum Leadership Institute and a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors
(AAMD), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM), and the Commercial Club of Chicago, among others.
of the work of renowned contemporary painter Luc Tuymans
. She was the Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(SFMOMA) for seven years, where she curated the critically acclaimed traveling exhibitions Take your time: Olafur Eliasson
(2007) and The Art of Richard Tuttle
(2005), which received a 2006 “Best U.S. Monographic Museum Show” award from the Association of International Art Critics. Prior to SFMOMA, Grynsztejn was curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art
, Pittsburgh (1997–2000). She curated the 1999 Carnegie International
, a globally focused quadrennial exhibition, and exhibitions of individual artists including William Kentridge
, Kiki Smith
, Diana Thater
, and James Welling
. Grynsztejn was associate curator (1992–96) and acting department head of 20th-century painting and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago
where she curated Affinities: Chuck Close
and Tom Friedman
(1996) and About Place: Recent Art of the Americas (1995).
Grynsztejn began her curatorial career at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (1986–1992). She worked as associate curator and specialized in commissioning new projects with artists including Alfredo Jaar
, Jeff Wall
, and Krzysztof Wodiczko
. She co-organized Dos Ciudades/Two Cities, a series of exhibitions, publications, and projects located in San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, tied to the theme of the US/Mexico border.
programs to augment each museum’s collection with key acquisitions including works by Vija Celmins
, Chuck Close
, Olafur Eliasson
, Dan Flavin
, Robert Gober
, Ann Hamilton
, William Kentridge
, Kerry James Marshall
, Gordon Matta-Clark
, Julie Mehretu
, Chris Ofili
, Edward Ruscha
, Doris Salcedo
, Kiki Smith
, Robert Smithson
, Richard Tuttle
, Luc Tuymans
, Bill Viola
, Kara Walker
, and Rachel Whiteread
.
reported that Grynsztejn and Michael Darling
, whom she appointed James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator, are overseeing the redefining of the MCA vision with the ultimate goal of clarity. Grynsztejn has also been featured in Town & Country for her commitment to redefining the MCA’s vision.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...
. Grynsztejn became director in 2008.
Life and Education
Grynsztejn was born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and London, England. She studied at the SorbonneSorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in Paris and received her BA in art history and French from Newcomb College of Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
. She received her MA in art history from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. Grynsztejn is fluent in English, Spanish, and French. Her husband, Tom Shapiro, is a strategic consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
to non-profits.
A former Helena Rubenstein Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, Grynsztejn has been a lecturer, interviewee, moderator, and panelist on film, TV, radio, Web, and other public forums on art-related topics. She is a 2007 graduate of the Getty Foundation
Getty Foundation
The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California, at the Getty Center, awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts". In the past, it funded the Getty Leadership Institute for "current and future museum leaders", which is now at Claremont Graduate University. Its...
’s Museum Leadership Institute and a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors
Association of Art Museum Directors
The Association of Art Museum Directors is an organisation of art museums in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.Established in 1916 by the directors of twelve American museums, the Association formally incorporated in 1969. At that time the Association also hired an employee, and increased the...
(AAMD), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM), and the Commercial Club of Chicago, among others.
Career
In 2009, Grynsztejn co-organized the first U.S. retrospectiveRetrospective
Retrospective generally means to take a look back at events that already have taken place. For example, the term is used in medicine, describing a look back at a patient's medical history or lifestyle.-Music:...
of the work of renowned contemporary painter Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Tuymans is considered one of the most influential painters working today. His signature figurative paintings transform mediated film, television, and print sources into examinations of history and memory.-Life:Tuymans...
. She was the Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
(SFMOMA) for seven years, where she curated the critically acclaimed traveling exhibitions Take your time: Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research...
(2007) and The Art of Richard Tuttle
Richard Tuttle
Richard Dean Tuttle is an American postminimalist artist known for his small, subtle, intimate works. His art makes use of scale and line.- Biography :...
(2005), which received a 2006 “Best U.S. Monographic Museum Show” award from the Association of International Art Critics. Prior to SFMOMA, Grynsztejn was curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art
Carnegie Museum of Art
The Carnegie Museum of Art, located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an art museum founded in 1895 by the Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie...
, Pittsburgh (1997–2000). She curated the 1999 Carnegie International
Carnegie International
The Carnegie International is the oldest North American exhibition of contemporary art from around the globe. It was first organized at the behest of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie on November 5, 1896 in Pittsburgh. Carnegie established the International to educate and inspire the...
, a globally focused quadrennial exhibition, and exhibitions of individual artists including William Kentridge
William Kentridge
William Kentridge is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two...
, Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith is an American artist classified as a feminist artist, a movement with beginnings in the twentieth century...
, Diana Thater
Diana Thater
Diana Thater is an American artist, curator, writer, and educator. She has been a pioneering creator of film, video, and installation art since the early 1990s...
, and James Welling
James Welling
James Welling earned both a BFA and an MFA at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia , where he studied with, among others, Dan Graham. He emerged in the 1970s as an artist for whom photographic norms and the representational field itself were and remain contested and problematized...
. Grynsztejn was associate curator (1992–96) and acting department head of 20th-century painting and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
where she curated Affinities: Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
and Tom Friedman
Tom Friedman (artist)
Tom Friedman American conceptual sculptor known for his work employing everyday material, such as toothpicks or sugar cubes in intricate geometric arrangements. Friedman was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended Washington University in St. Louis, receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic...
(1996) and About Place: Recent Art of the Americas (1995).
Grynsztejn began her curatorial career at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (1986–1992). She worked as associate curator and specialized in commissioning new projects with artists including Alfredo Jaar
Alfredo Jaar
Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean-born artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives in New York. He was born in 1956 in Santiago de Chile. He is mostly known as an installation artist, often incorporating photography and covering socio-political issues and war - the best known perhaps being the 6-year long...
, Jeff Wall
Jeff Wall
Jeffrey "Jeff" Wall, OC, RSA is a Canadian artist best known for his large-scale back-lit cibachrome photographs and art-historical writing. Wall has been a key figure in Vancouver's art scene since the early-1970s...
, and Krzysztof Wodiczko
Krzysztof Wodiczko
Krzysztof Wodiczko, born April 16th 1943, is an artist renowned for his large-scale slide and video projections on architectural facades and monuments...
. She co-organized Dos Ciudades/Two Cities, a series of exhibitions, publications, and projects located in San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, tied to the theme of the US/Mexico border.
Major Acquisitions
At each of the museums in which she has worked, Grynsztejn was responsible for all areas of the permanent collection of contemporary art including its growth, presentation, and interpretation. She has led acquisitionAcquisition
Acquisition may refer to:* Takeover, the acquisition of a company* Mergers and acquisitions, strategy of buying and selling of various companies to quickly grow a company...
programs to augment each museum’s collection with key acquisitions including works by Vija Celmins
Vija Celmins
Vija Celmins is an American artist.-Early life:Vija Celmins immigrated to the United States with her family from Latvia when she was ten years old. She and her family settled in Indiana...
, Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
, Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research...
, Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.-Early life and career:...
, Robert Gober
Robert Gober
Robert Gober is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs.-Life and work:...
, Ann Hamilton
Ann Hamilton
Ann Hamilton is a contemporary American artist best known for her installations, textile art, and sculptures, but is also active in the fields of photography, printmaking, video, and video installation....
, William Kentridge
William Kentridge
William Kentridge is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two...
, Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall is an artist born in Birmingham, Alabama. He grew up in South Central Los Angeles and now lives in Chicago where he previously taught at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago...
, Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark was an American artist best known for his site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He is famous for his "building cuts," a series of works in abandoned buildings in which he variously removed sections of floors, ceilings, and walls.-Life and work:Both of Gordon Matta-Clark's...
, Julie Mehretu
Julie Mehretu
Julie Mehretu is an artist, best known for her densely-layered abstract paintings and prints. She lives and works in New York City...
, Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
, Edward Ruscha
Edward Ruscha
Edward Joseph Ruscha IV is an American artist associated with the Pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. Ruscha lives and works in Culver City, California...
, Doris Salcedo
Doris Salcedo
Doris Salcedo is a Colombian-born sculptor.Salcedo completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano in 1980, before traveling to New York, where she completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at New York University. She then returned to Bogotá to teach at the Universidad...
, Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith is an American artist classified as a feminist artist, a movement with beginnings in the twentieth century...
, Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson was an American artist famous for his land art.-Background and education:Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York....
, Richard Tuttle
Richard Tuttle
Richard Dean Tuttle is an American postminimalist artist known for his small, subtle, intimate works. His art makes use of scale and line.- Biography :...
, Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Tuymans is considered one of the most influential painters working today. His signature figurative paintings transform mediated film, television, and print sources into examinations of history and memory.-Life:Tuymans...
, Bill Viola
Bill Viola
Bill Viola is a contemporary video artist. He is considered a leading figure in the generation of artists whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, and image technology in New Media...
, Kara Walker
Kara Walker
Kara Walker is a contemporary African American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes, such as The Means to an End--A Shadow Drama in Five Acts.-Biography:Walker was born in...
, and Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread, CBE is an English artist, best known for her sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize....
.
Vision
As director of the MCA, Grynsztejn’s vision is to make the museum an “artist-activated, audience-engaged space where art, ideas, community, and conversation dynamically occur.” Grynsztejn has been working to redefine the MCA’s vision since her appointment in 2008: “Much of her time over the last two-and-a-half years has been spent recentering the MCA’s mission on the creative process and audience participation.” In June 2011, the Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
reported that Grynsztejn and Michael Darling
Michael Darling (curator)
Michael Darling is the James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago . Darling joined the MCA staff in July 2010. -Life and education:...
, whom she appointed James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator, are overseeing the redefining of the MCA vision with the ultimate goal of clarity. Grynsztejn has also been featured in Town & Country for her commitment to redefining the MCA’s vision.
See also
- Museum of Contemporary Art, ChicagoMuseum of Contemporary Art, ChicagoThe Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...
- MCA StageMCA StageThe MCA Stage is the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s performing arts program. Founded in 1996 with the opening of the MCA’s new building at Chicago, Illinois.-History:...