After a lengthy and ambitious search, the University has tapped Kimerly Rorschach, director of the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, to lead the new Nasher Museum of Art.
President Nan Keohane--who, along with Provost Peter Lange and a selection committee, selected Rorschach--announced the appointment Monday.
"All of us engaged in the search were impressed with Kim Rorschach's strong background as an experienced museum director and well-trained professional in the arts. She is also energetic, thoughtful and excited about the possibilities of a splendid new building," Keohane said.
Rorschach will arrive at the University this summer in time to plan for the October 2005 opening of the Nasher Museum, currently under construction on Campus Drive.
Rorschach said she was looking forward to coming to Duke and building a new museum from the ground up--what she described as a rare opportunity. She expressed no reservations about leaving the bustling urban atmosphere of Chicago for Durham.
"These decisions are always challenging ones to make, but it's a very exciting opportunity and I'm delighted to be coming," she said. "I've spent 10 wonderful years at Chicago and the prospect of coming to Duke and starting this new museum was just too good an opportunity to pass up."
Before taking over the Smart Museum, Rorschach had curatorial positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia. Her doctorate from Yale University in 18th-century European art may have limited applicability at the Nasher Museum, which will boast a largely contemporary and modern collection; however, Lange said he probed her commitment to contemporary art and was suitably impressed.
Overall, Lange said he was thrilled with the appointment.
"She has great experience, feel [and] energy, and she has vision," he said. "I'm enormously excited about this first director for the new museum."
The directorship of the Nasher Museum became vacant when former Duke University Museum of Art Director Michael Mezzatesta was released in June and replaced with Interim Director Sarah Schroth. With a brand-new $23 million museum on the way and a major effort by the administration to boost Duke's arts offerings and reputation, Keohane and Lange explained they needed a director with the ambition and abilities to match the University's increased commitment.
Rorschach, whom Lange called a "very bright star" in the art world, seems to fit the bill. She raised the Smart Museum's endowment from $3 million to $15 million during her nine-year tenure at the University of Chicago, raised its private annual support by 300 percent and took the museum from what Lange said was "a position of difficulty" to being "a very, very fine museum."
She also has the university experience administrators sought.
University art museums require a somewhat different set of priorities compared to regular art museums, including interaction with faculty, staff and students and commitment to the academic enterprise. Rorschach and Lange both said they envision the Nasher Museum opening up a new era in Duke's engagement with the Durham community through the arts.
"At the Smart Museum, in the past 10 years we've been able to advance the museum as a very vital part of the University and the broader arts community," Rorschach said. "Everyone's been surprised at the difference the museum's been able to make, and I think that's what I'd want at Duke."
While she has three key advantages in what Keohane called a "spectacular" new facility, Duke's general academic reputation and the support of renowned Texas art collector Raymond Nasher, Rorschach faces the formidable challenge of extremely high hopes. Lange pointed out, however, that his ambitions to develop a top-notch art museum are on a reasonable timetable.
"We recognize that we have a great opportunity here, but an as-yet-unrealized opportunity, and we don't have all the resources here at Duke to take advantage," he said. "This is not an immediate thing."
Rorschach is also an associate professor of art history at the University of Chicago and a lecturer at the law school, where she co-teaches a course in art law. She said she hopes to keep up with teaching at Duke, but has no idea if she will teach at Duke's law school.
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