The Revolving Door

A year and a half after he stepped up to replace longtime Vogue design director Charles Churchward, Danko Steiner has decided to leave the magazine. He is concluding his four-year tenure at Vogue to pursue photography, according to a report from WWD. Editor-in-chief Anna Wintour is bringing in Raúl Martinez, principal and chief creative officer of AR New York, as creative consultant. Martinez, whose firm has masterminded branding and advertising for the likes of Brioni and Narciso Rodriguez, has a history with Wintour, having worked with her to relaunch House and Garden and later serving as Vogue's creative director. He returns to the fold on December 1.

Spanning the globe, or at least the continent, we bring you news of freshly appointed directors at two esteemed art institutions. Klaus Biesenbach, he of the consummate curatorial skill and ultra-minimalist apartment, has been named director of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, part of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) since 2000. He succeeds P.S.1 founding director Alanna Heiss, who retired last year. Biesenbach, currently chief curator of media and performance art at MoMA and chief curatorial advisor at P.S.1, takes office as director in January, when he will also become MoMA's chief curator at large. In the meantime, Biesenbach is busy putting the finishing touches on the 2010 MoMA retrospective of the work of Marina Abramovic and co-organizing the New York installation of the touring exhibition "William Kentridge: Five Themes," opening at MoMA in February.

Over in Seattle, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, former director of the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, is the new director of the Frye Art Museum, which was established in the 1950s as a private foundation and museum. Its founding collection focuses on late 19th and early 20th century European art with an emphasis on artists associated with the Munich Secession. Last year, Birnie Danzker curated the museum's 2009 "Munich Secession and America" show, which taught us the word Künstlergenossenschaft. Bringing things full circle, she served as exhibition director of "The Short Century" and shown at the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and...P.S.1.

Smart Design has brought in Matt Barthelemy to serve as vice president of interaction design. He will lead the interaction design group through what the company describes as "an exciting period of growth and evolution" and as part of Smart's leadership team, share responsibility for mentorship, business strategy, business development, and client account management. Barthelemy comes to Smart Design from digital communications firm Method, where he served as vice president of strategy after stints at MetaDesign, Sapient Corporation, and frog design. His clients have included Sony, TiVo, Nokia, Motorola, Lufthansa, and the design of Apple's original PowerBooks, the 100 and 140/170 (oh, how we coveted one of those!).

It's been a busy fall for Disney. The company recently announced its agreement to acquire Marvel Entertainment in a $4 billion deal that would bring the likes of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor, and the Fantastic Four into the company's stable of animated characters. Helping to decide the filmic fates of everyone from Captain America to the X-Men—provided that the deal closes—will be Rich Ross, the newly appointed chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. Ross, who has led the Disney Channel to world domination (see also: Montana, Hannah), will oversee worldwide production, distribution, and marketing for Disney's live-action and feature animated film labels, including Walt Disney, Touchstone, Miramax, and Disney/Pixar. He'll also head the company's theatrical and music groups.

Apologies all around for this writer's disappearing act yesterday. Unfortunately, the flu decided to drop by Chicago this week and decided that we should host it. But now, though still on the mend, we're back to full strength. First up, the D&AD, following their hiring of industry icon Tim O'Kennedy as Chief Executive of the creative-focused charity, the organization has rounded out by announcing their new executive class for 2010, most notable within that news is that they've selected their next future-president, Simon Sankarayya, who will take over after their current, just-inaugurated president, Paul Brazier, resides in the spot for a year (this constant rotation is part of the D&AD's rules, as far as we can tell). All of this change comes atop the group's falling on hard times recently and having to lay staffers off due to fewer award entries. But, as is their want, the new top brass is optimistic and hopeful for the future, but thankfully with a bit of realism still intact:

New president Brazier says, "I haven't checked, but I'm willing to bet that every incoming D&AD president has described the year ahead as 'challenging.' This one certainly will be. There's less money about. More awards schemes competing for entries. And the possibilities in communications seem to change almost daily."

Elsewhere in New York, all eyes in the museum business are on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as the new guy at the head of the ship, Thomas "Tapestry Tom" Campbell, finally had the first round of his cabinet appointments approved by the museum's board. They include Carrie Rebora Barratt who, in addition to having a name with vowels to spare in it, will be taking over as associate director for collections and administration, as well as forming a new new-media department, and Sheila Canby, who is leaving the British Museum to head up all things Islamic art. All the other swaps and replacements are detailed here in brief, over at the NY Times. For a full reading on all of this shiny top brass, head over to the Met's press room for full releases on all of them. Here's Campbell statement about the new hires:

"I am extremely pleased to announce these appointments," Mr. Campbell said, "all of whom bring profound experience, outstanding creativity and judgment, and the respect of their colleagues to their new responsibilities. Working together with our strong Board and management, and with our superb staff, Carrie Rebora Barratt, Keith Christiansen, Sheila R. Canby, and Peggy Fogelman will play key roles in furthering the Museum's goals of upholding the institution's excellence and vibrancy, and of constantly enriching our visitors' engagement with art."

He continued, "Despite the challenging times in which we live, this extraordinary and encyclopedic museum maintains all of its power to awe and inspire, to teach and to enlighten. We are charged with preserving these strengths and building on them for the next generations. I look forward to the exciting teamwork ahead, as I welcome these four top professionals into their new positions and as we continue to work together to further our mission into the next decades of the 21st century."

In a move that makes Parsons the easy winner of the "Coolest Named Dean" competition, architect and scholar Miodrag Mitrasinovic will take the helm of its School of Design Strategies (SDS). The school—one of five at Parsons—addresses the intersection of cities, services, and ecosystems through undergraduate programs in integrated design, design and management, and environmental studies, and is developing a slate of graduate programs in fields such as design management and urban design studies.

"I am deeply confident that in this new position Miodrag will successfully lead the ongoing development of the School of Design Strategies," said Parsons Dean Joel Towers, who led the formation of SDS. "Miodrag is highly qualified for this role. He is a significantly accomplished academic, has provided invaluable service to Parsons and The New School, and brings a collaborative, respectful, and visionary personality to the job." Plus, among his recent architectural achievements is designing Belgrade's first Montessori school, complete with a novel modular furniture system. Mitrasinovic, who previously served as chair of urban and transdisciplinary design in SDS, will hold his new decanal post until January 2011.

As you may recall, we're big fans of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center (SJDC) at Parsons The New School for Design. Designed with mind-boggingly efficiency by Lyn Rice Architects, the building wraps a Greenwich Village corner in a bustling, shape-shifting campus hub/art gallery/event space, complete with an auditorium that is at once sleek and cozy. So we're pleased to report that Parsons has selected a director and chief curator for the SJDC in Radhika Subramaniam, who will also serve as an assistant professor of art and design history and theory.

An independent curator, editor, and writer, Subramaniam most recently served as director of cultural orograms at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She was also the founding and executive editor of Connect: art.politics.theory.practice, an interdisciplinary art journal published by Arts International, and has taught at Barnard College, Columbia University, and New York University. "The New School is an extraordinary place of intersecting cultures, academic scholarship, and global social consciousness," said Subramaniam in a statement issued today. "The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center has the potential to be a leading forum for 'creative research' that considers conceptions of intimate and public realms as well as physical and virtual space, and for responding with intellectual rigor to the questions of form and politics."

We love the Public Art Fund. You love the Public Art Fund. And so news of the extraordinary Rochelle Steiner's resignation from the directorship of the non-profit arts organization sent us into a funk: humming a dirge (TLC's "Waterfalls") and deliriously searching Manhattan for rare, possibly imaginary penguins. But things are looking up. The Fund's board of directors has chosen a worthy successor in Nicholas Baume (at right), who has served as chief curator of Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art since 2003 (and counts among his publications a fantastic book on Sol Lewitt's Incomplete Open Cubes). "New York has always fired the artistic imagination," said Baume. "Public Art Fund has played a key role in making the City itself a platform for contemporary artists. I'm thrilled to have the chance to build on that legacy, connecting new art and diverse audiences to harness the creative energy of our moment." Baume will assume the roles of director and chief curator of the Public Art Fund on September 21.

Three cheers for architect and Princeton professor Sarah Whiting (that's her at right, all smiles amidst the Tyvek), who has been appointed dean of the Rice University School of Architecture. "Leading the Rice School of Architecture is a dream job," Whiting said in a statement issued today. "Because it is small, everyone—faculty and students alike—is engaged. The dean is not a distanced administrator like at big architecture schools, but is right in there focusing the school's ambition." Her decanal career officially begins on January 1, 2010, when she'll take over from John Casbarian, who has been serving as interim dean since Lars Lerup stepped down in the spring after 16 years in the post.

An expert in urban and architectural theory, Whiting came to Princeton in 2005 after six years at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (it was while at the GSD that she appeared on Charlie Rose, discussing Peter Eisenman). Prior to that, she taught at the University of Kentucky, IIT, and the University of Florida. Whiting is also an alumna of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and departed Team Koolhaas for WW Architecture, the firm she founded with her husband, Ron Witte. WW's current projects include renovations for the drama division of the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center and a museum of art and design for San Jose State University. "I feel the variety of her experiences is a real asset," said Rice University provost Eugene Levy, who is not to be confused with the Canadian funnyman. "She's been on the faculty of a diverse set of institutions, which has fostered a broad set of perceptions and openness to thinking about the challenges of the discipline and the challenges of leadership that will be extremely valuable."