It is official, and perhaps inevitable: Massimiliano Gioni is taking the reins at the New Museum. Effective August 1, 2026, the Italian-born curator, who has served as the institution’s artistic director since 2014, will become its next Toby Devan Lewis Director.
The appointment marks a seamless passing of the baton at a crucial juncture for the Bowery institution, which recently unveiled its sprawling OMA-designed expansion. Gioni steps into a vital lineage, succeeding the famously forward-looking Lisa Phillips and inheriting the fiercely independent mantle established by the museum’s founder, Marcia Tucker.
Since arriving at the museum in 2006, Gioni has been the restless engine behind some of the city’s most visually arresting and intellectually rigorous programming. He possesses an undeniable knack for taking the cultural temperature. His ambitious thematic surveys—from the mournful ecological prescience of “After Nature” to the essential, devastating “Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America”—have consistently anchored the museum’s identity as a site of unflinching inquiry.
But Gioni is equally adept at the monographic deep dive. He has mounted major solo exhibitions that cement the legacies of historical heavyweights and contemporary disruptors alike, championing a sprawling roster of artists that includes Hans Haacke, Lynda Benglis, Faith Ringgold, and Pipilotti Rist.
Globally, Gioni has long operated at the highest altitudes of the biennial circuit. He directed the 55th Venice Biennale and the 8th Gwangju Biennale, alongside executing major curatorial projects for the Nicola Trussardi Foundation in Milan and Qatar Museums. Yet, rather than pulling his focus away from New York, these international maneuvers have routinely fed back into the New Museum, amplifying its global footprint and bringing the world to the Bowery.
By elevating its most prominent curatorial voice to the directorship, the New Museum’s board signals a refreshing commitment to what matters most in an era of relentless institutional expansion: the art itself.