Ending a 10-month search and days of intense speculation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art appointed Michael Govan, head of the Dia Art Foundation in New York, director and chief executive officer of the Wilshire Boulevard institution Thursday. He will succeed Andrea L. Rich, who retired in November.
Govan, 42, is a well-known figure in the art world who rose from deputy director at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York to the top job at Dia, a leading cultural institution that collects contemporary art, supports massive outdoor projects in the American West and maintains large exhibition spaces in Manhattan and Beacon, N.Y. During his 11-year tenure, he is credited with transforming Dia from a highly specialized source of funding for individual artists' projects into an institution that brings contemporary art to a broader audience.
He will leave the relatively small, privately funded bastion of rarefied aesthetics for a sprawling, complex institution that supports itself with a combination of public and private funds. With the largest encyclopedic collection, ranging through history and across geography, in the Western states, LACMA has a sweeping public mandate. It also has undertaken a massive renovation and expansion program, but Govan said he looks forward to the challenge.
"Los Angeles is a great city," he said. "It's home to more creative people than anywhere in the world. It's the future. I think the museum is a sleeping giant."
LACMA's board of trustees voted to appoint Govan in a conference call Thursday afternoon, ratifying the recommendation of an 11-member search committee that considered 26 candidates. Govan is expected to take charge of the museum in early March.
The terms of his contract were not disclosed. The director's seat has been empty since Rich ended her 10-year tenure.
Nancy Daly Riordan, chairwoman of LACMA's board of trustees and head of the search committee, described Govan as "a visionary and a doer."
"This is a man who makes a commitment and works very hard to do the best he can wherever he is," she said. "After spending time with him and learning what he has done at Dia, we feel that he will bring that same dedication to LACMA at a time when we are ready to move into a new level and make the most of our amazing collection. He is a leader who understands art from the historical side, from the antiquities side all the way through to the most contemporary view. He will maximize everything the museum is."
