Katya Kazakina drops the bombshell that former Guggenheim Director Thomas Krens is making three times his successor’s salary in a development deal for the museum’s overseas expansions:

On Friday, the foundation disclosed in its 2009 tax return that it paid Krens’ company, Global Cultural Asset Management, $816,295 last year for overseeing plans to build a Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi. Krens also received a second and final $1 million installment of a $2 million bonus and severance awarded when he resigned as the Guggenheim Foundation director in 2008.

Richard Armstrong, current director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, received $612,550 in his first full year in the post, according to the tax return. […] Armstrong’s pay is comparable to chiefs of some other, much smaller New York museums, based on their most recent tax returns. The Guggenheim’s $61 million budget is five times that of the New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery, yet his compensation is comparable to the $600,430 listed for Lisa Phillips, the New Museum’s director. And Armstrong earned less than the $680,097 attributed to Adam Weinberg, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Guggenheim’s budget is nearly double that of the Whitney.

Guggenheim Pays Former Chief $1.8 Million, Triple Salary of Current Head (Bloomberg)