Visionary Leader Highlighted Emerging Artists and Grew LAs Art Scene
By Keemia Zhang
Ann Philbin, the Director of the Hammer Museum at UCLA since 1999, has announced she will conclude her twenty-four-year tenure as director in 2024.
Referred to by ArtNet as one of the most “influential Museum directors today,” Philbin’s final projects at the Hammer will conclude with “Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice,” set for display in fall 2024 as part of the Getty-endowed PST ART: Art and Sciences Collide initiative. Marcy Carsey, Chair of the museum’s Board of Directors, said in a statement: “Thanks to her vision, the Hammer is known today as a world-class museum, internationally renowned yet uniquely and indisputably at the heart of Los Angeles.”
Her leadership oversaw collection expansions of contemporary and illustrated art, as well as substantial program development. The director spearheaded several cutting-edge recurring exhibitions, including Hammer Projects, one-off installations that feature the works of emerging artists, and the biennial Made in L.A, which features a “multifaceted and expansive” purview of Southern Californian art through commissioned work. Public lectures, discussions, and film screenings were also established in the Museum’s Billy Wilder Theater.
Philbin, who regards the artists of Los Angeles as her core audience, referred to her tenure as “the privilege of a lifetime” to make the museum “everything that Los Angeles and our wider community deserve.” Philbin, who graduated from NYU, formerly served as an independent curator before becoming director of The Drawing Center in New York City in 1990. She subsequently replaced Henry Hopkins as the Hammer’s Director, with attendance quadrupling to 250,000 per year.
This spring, Philbin also supervised a $180 million dollar expansion effort of the Hammer’s campus, furnishing 40,000 square feet of new lobby and exhibition spaces along Wilshire Blvd. Under Philbin’s direction, the museum’s annual budget rose from $6 million to $30 million, with its endowment growing from $35 million to over $125 million.
Brett Steele, Dean of UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture, referred to the Hammer as “a space that is first and foremost for artists—a place where the creative communities of Los Angeles find inspiration not only in the museum’s galleries but also in its theater, where [programs] demonstrate the myriad ways the arts engage with the world, and vice versa. Her achievements for the Hammer and her impact at UCLA and across Los Angeles are beyond compare.”
