Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced on Wed. the establishment of a newly endowed curatorial position in the Museum's Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. The Aaron I. Fleischman Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, will be held by Ian Alteveer, who has been at The Met for 11 years and was promoted to Curator last year. Aaron Fleischman's endowment contributes significantly toward supporting the Museum's ongoing work in the field of modern and contemporary art. 

"We are immensely grateful for the funding of this vital position in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art," said Mr. Weiss. "The endowment of curatorial positions is one of the Museum's top priorities. With this gift, Mr. Fleischman will enable The Met to continue our momentum on presenting and studying art of the 20th and 21st centuries, and, importantly, he joins a group of donors who are ensuring the future of the institution through their thoughtful philanthropy."  

Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art, added, "This endowment by Mr. Fleischman, a prominent collector of modern and contemporary art, ensures that his distinguished legacy as a collector and connoisseur of modern art will forever be linked to The Met's leadership and vision in the field."

Aaron I. Fleischman, of Miami Beach, Florida, is an investor. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he founded and oversaw, for over 35 years, a leading, eponymous Washington, D.C., law firm in the communications, telecom, and energy sectors. During a period marked by explosive growth and change in these industries, he and his firm were a dynamic presence on behalf of major clients in the development, shaping, and often transformation of both the clients' businesses and their related industries.

For over 30 years, Mr. Fleischman has been an avid collector of modern and contemporary European and American art. He has been a benefactor of many museums and other institutions throughout the country, primarily in Miami; Washington, D.C.; New York; Cambridge; Chicago; and New Orleans. He has served on several corporate and museum boards, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. He is presently on the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago.

"We are immensely grateful for the funding of this vital position in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art," said Mr. Weiss. "The endowment of curatorial positions is one of the Museum's top priorities. With this gift, Mr. Fleischman will enable The Met to continue our momentum on presenting and studying art of the 20th and 21st centuries, and, importantly, he joins a group of donors who are ensuring the future of the institution through their thoughtful philanthropy."

Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art, added, "This endowment by Mr. Fleischman, a prominent collector of modern and contemporary art, ensures that his distinguished legacy as a collector and connoisseur of modern art will forever be linked to The Met's leadership and vision in the field."

Ian Alteveer joined The Met in 2006 as Exhibition Assistant for Jasper Johns: Gray (2008).  As Associate Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, he organized three Cantor Roof Garden Commissions—for Pierre Huyghe (2015), Dan Graham and Günter Vogt (2014), and Imran Qureshi (2013)—as well as the installation of William Kentridge: The Refusal of Time (2013). His recent projects have included co-curating major retrospectives for Kerry James Marshall (2016), Marisa Merz (2017), and David Hockney (2017). He was promoted to Curator in January 2017.  Before joining The Met, he was a graduate curatorial fellow and curatorial assistant at New York University's Grey Art Gallery. He has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and completed his qualifying exams for a PhD at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts in 2006.