Philippe Vergne chooses Boston’s Helen Molesworth as Chief Curator:

The Museum of Contemporary Art took the next step in rebuilding its staff and programming, appointing Helen Molesworth of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston as its new chief curator.

A scholar, art writer and curator, Molesworth has been at ICA/Boston since 2010. Before that she headed the department of modern and contemporary art at the Harvard Art Museum and served as the museums Houghton Curator of Contemporary Art. She will start Sept. 1. […]

“Molesworth said that early in her career she was inspired by MOCAs collection of post-World War II art and by former MOCA curators, who helped her shape her own curatorial voice.

She cited three MOCA exhibitions as particularly influential: Paul Schimmels 1998 “Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979,” on the postwar merger of performance art with traditional painting and sculpture; “A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958-1968,” the first full-scale museum survey of Minimalist art, curated by Ann Goldstein in 2004 and “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution,” curated in 2007 by Connie Butler, now chief curator at the Hammer Museum.

MOCA names Helen Molesworth as chief curator, effective Sept. 1 (Los Angeles Times)

Philippe Vergne speaks to the LA Times about his new appointment:

“My vision is to commit to the most experimental artists of our time, but also to contextualize their work within a broader context,” Vergne said in an interview. “And I think Moca’s collection is one of the best to contextualize that kind of experimentation.”

In addition to his five years at Dia, Vergne, 47, has served as chief curator and deputy director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, director of the Francois Pinault Foundation in Paris and director of the Musee d’art Contemporain in Marseille, France. He was born and educated in France.

He has organized exhibitions devoted to individual artists, group shows and shows organized by theme, and Vergne co-curated the 2006 Whitney Biennial. […]

“He’s charming, yet he’s strong and independent. I think he has the independence to say ‘no’ at times, and I think that’s a very strong quality to look for in a director,” Wachs said of Vergne. “We started with a list of over 50, and he really emerged as a person who was perfect for this job…as having the qualities the museum really needs at this time.”

MOCA names Philippe Vergne as new director (LA Times)

The incomparable Jori Finkel breaks the MoCA appointment news:

After a six-month search that fueled intense speculation, the Museum of Contemporary Art here is expected to announce that Philippe Vergne, director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York, has been chosen as its new director, according to people with knowledge of the decision who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Museum of Contemporary Art Picks Philippe Vergne as Director (NYTimes)

The shortlist of potential replacements for Jeffrey Deitch is very short indeed, if this LA Times story is right. Former Hirshhorn director Richard Koshalek comes to John Baldessari’s mind and Joel Wachs is said to have a close tie to Ann Goldstein, a former curator now at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Finding names may be less of an issue than creating an environment where the new director can thrive. Some former board members blame the ever-present Eli Broad:

“Whoever they get to replace Jeffrey Deitch will need to have an absolute guarantee of complete curatorial freedom to do the shows they want, when they want,” says former Museum of Contemporary Art board member and art collector Dean Valentine, who currently serves on an advisory board of Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum.

“Until Eli Broad comes to a recognition that he needs to stay away from the museum in anything other than a financial capacity,” he says, “and until the board begins to behave responsibly and financially support the director, then a new director won’t have the tools to revive this amazing institution.”

Others suggest the problem remains with a still dysfunctional board that has yet to set its house in order. The museum runs with a skeletal staff and a budget that is substantially smaller than it was decades ago.

A Post-Deitch MoCA Presents Challenge for Next Director (Los Angeles Times)