The Brooklyn Museum announced today that Anne Pasternak has been named its Shelby White and Leon Levy Director. Pasternak will join the Museum after more than 20 years as the accomplished President and Artistic Director of Creative Time, a non-profit arts organization that has commissioned and presented major public art projects with hundreds of artists throughout New York City, across the United States, and internationally. Pasternak will succeed Arnold L. Lehman, who announced last year his plans to retire in 2015 after 17 years as the Brooklyn Museum’s Director. Pasternak was elected by the Brooklyn Museum’s Board of Trustees today and will assume the directorship on September 1, 2015.

Pasternak joins a trio of female leaders of the Brooklyn Museum: Elizabeth A. Sackler, Chair, Board of Trustees; Stephanie Ingrassia, President, Board of Trustees; and, Barbara Knowles Debs, Vice Chair, Board of Trustees.

“Anne Pasternak is a fantastic leader who will expand upon the extraordinary growth the Brooklyn Museum has achieved during Arnold Lehman’s tenure. Pairing Anne’s talents with the depth and breadth of the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection—one of the richest and most expansive collections in the country—will bring the Museum to new heights,” states Elizabeth A. Sackler, Board Chair and Founder of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Dr. Sackler continues, “Anne Pasternak has a proven track record in her more than 25 years of experience in the arts. Her management skills and passion for connecting diverse cultures and communities are evidenced by her achievements at Creative Time, which she grew from a fledgling organization to one of New York’s most effective and popular presenters of public art.”

“The Search Committee is proud to have unanimously selected Anne Pasternak from a competitive field of highly qualified, international candidates,” states Stephanie Ingrassia, Board President and Co-chair of the Search Committee.” Anne is a true visionary and understands the power of art to transform communities.

She’s the ideal person to channel the creative energy of a constantly evolving Brooklyn with the Museum at its center. She will continue to explore ideas that enhance the ways people experience art, now through the vast, world-renowned collections of the Brooklyn Museum.” Search Committee Co-chair Barbara Manfrey Vogelstein adds, “Anne brings to us her broad and deep experience working with world-class artists and in collaboration with cultural and government institutions throughout the city.” Ingrassia concluded, “We thank the Search Committee and wish Anne and the Brooklyn Museum many congratulations on this exciting appointment.”

“I am humbled and deeply honored to follow in the footsteps of Arnold Lehman, a trailblazing director who has led the Brooklyn Museum to prominence with ambitious programming, an ethos of inclusion, and a great love of the Museum’s permanent collections,” stated Anne Pasternak. She continued, “With a distinguished history, an experienced leadership team, a forward-thinking staff, and a bold mission, the Museum is extremely well positioned to go even further as a place for great art, learning, and civic vibrancy—in Brooklyn and beyond.” 

Says departing director Arnold L. Lehman: “Anne is one of the most dynamic and creative forces in the art world today. I expect that once her extraordinary experience and energies are connected to the exciting, inclusive brand and treasures of the Brooklyn Museum, the blend will be ‘dynamite’! I’ve known Anne for 30 years, and she is the right person to lead the Museum into the future.” 

Deeply passionate about engaging broad audiences that transcend geographic, racial, and socioeconomic divisions, Anne Pasternak has continually championed artists and works relevant to the contemporary age. She has worked in productive partnership with scores of government and civic agencies, cultural institutions, and community groups, including The Mayor’s Office of the City of New York, Governors Island, The New York Public Library, The Central Park Conservancy, The Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the High Line, and community organizations such as the Weeksville Heritage Center. This fresh approach makes Pasternak uniquely qualified to lead the Brooklyn Museum, which aims to bridge the rich artistic heritage of world cultures, as embodied in its collections, with the individual experiences of its diverse visitors.

During her two decades at Creative Time, Pasternak has proven herself to be ambitious and innovative, with multifaceted management skills, leading the organization in commissioning, funding, and presenting hundreds of artist projects and installations throughout New York City and around the world. She grew the operating budget of the organization significantly, and built an enviable board made up of arts patrons, artists, and scholars. 

Pasternak has led the creation and presentation of art initiatives that are inclusive, publicly accessible, and free of charge, in dozens of neighborhoods throughout each of the five boroughs, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Coney Island, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, and Williamsburg in Brooklyn to Far Rockaway, Harlem, Lower Manhattan, Times Square, the Upper East Side, the North Shore of Staten Island, and many more. In addition, under her leadership Creative Time expanded nationally and internationally. Important projects include Tribute in Light, the twin beacons of light that illuminated the sky above the former World Trade Center site after 9/11 and beyond; Paul Chan’s Waiting for Godot in New Orleans’s Lower 9th Ward; Nick Cave’s Heard NY in Grand Central Terminal; Doug Aitken’s Sleepwalkers at The Museum of Modern Art; Jenny Holzer’s For New York at Rockefeller Center; Kara Walker’s A Subtlety in the former Domino Sugar warehouse, Williamsburg; and the recent joint project Funk, God, Jazz & Medicine: Black Radical Brooklyn at the Weeksville Heritage Center and its surrounding neighborhood in Brooklyn. She launched the Creative Time Summit, the largest art and social-justice conference in the world, and Creative Time Reports, which puts artists’ opinions, editorials, and articles into mainstream news media.

Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1964, Pasternak, 50, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Arts Administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was a Master of Arts candidate at Hunter College, from which she received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 2013. In addition to her work with Creative Time, she has a long history of curating independent exhibitions, consulting on urban planning initiatives, and contributing essays to cultural publications. She has presented hundreds of talks at esteemed institutions and organizations, such as Brandeis University, Brown University, Hunter College, and the University of Michigan; and organized and moderated panels for The Andy Warhol Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, New York University, and The New York Times, among others. Pasternak has served on scores of juries for organizations including The Kresge Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Education, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and The Pew Charitable Trusts. She was a visiting scholar at the School of Visual Arts, New York (2005, 2006), and the Yale University School of Art (2003). Pasternak is married to the artist Mike Starn, and they have a college-age daughter.

 A 10-person Board-appointed committee conducted the Brooklyn Museum director search, including: Co-chairs Stephanie Ingrassia and Barbara Vogelstein, David Berliner, Barbara Knowles Debs, Richard W. Moore, Elizabeth A. Sackler, Carla Shen, Brooklyn Museum Chief Curator Kevin L. Stayton, John S. Tamagni, and Saundra Williams-Cornwell. Phillips Oppenheim managed the international search. including: Co-chairs Stephanie Ingrassia and Barbara Vogelstein, David Berliner, Barbara Knowles Debs, Richard W. Moore, Elizabeth A. Sackler, Carla Shen, Brooklyn Museum Chief Curator Kevin L. Stayton, John S. Tamagni, and Saundra Williams-Cornwell. Phillips Oppenheim managed the international search.