Max Hollein (born 7 July 1969) is an Austrian art historian and the CEO and Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.Max Hollein, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, to Add Chief Executive Officer Role in July 2023, Website Metropoliatain Museum of Art, August 3, 2022 He was Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from July 2016, until April 2018, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that Hollein would become its 10th director.Robin Pogrebin (10 April 2018), The Met Goes Beyond Its Doors to Pick a Leader Who Bridges Art and Technology New York Times.
Hollein oversaw both the de Young and the Legion of Honor museums, which together are the seventh most-visited art institutions in the United States, with 1.4 million visitors in 2016. Hollein joined the Fine Arts Museums in July 2016 from his position as the director of Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Städel Museum"Max Hollein Becomes Director of the Stadel", Art Daily, accessed on 8 April 2015. and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung.
Life Hollein was born in Vienna in 1969 to architect Hans Hollein and Helene Hollein. He studied art history at the University of Vienna and business administration at the Vienna University of Economics. During this period, he also free-lanced for the business section of the national daily newspaper "Der Standard". In 1995, following the successful completion of his studies with two master's degrees, one in art history and the other in business administration, he moved to New York City to take on the position of project director of exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
From 1996 until the end of 2000, he worked closely with Guggenheim director Thomas Krens, initially as "Executive Assistant to the Director" and, from 1998 onward, as "Chief of Staff and Manager of European Relations" responsible for key projects such as the establishment of the exhibition halls "Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin" and "Guggenheim Las Vegas". He was also involved in fundraising, travelling exhibitions, the inauguration activities at Guggenheim Bilbao as well as liaising with European cultural institutions, collectors, media, curators and sponsors.
Career Schirn Kunsthalle
From 2001 to 2016, Hollein was the director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.Frankfurt Museums Director Max Hollein to Head Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Artnet, 23 March 2016. He repositioned the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt nationally as well as internationally through a highly popular yet challenging exhibition programme from classical to contemporary art mounting up to ten major shows per year. The depth, quality and quantity of the programme has been accompanied by a significant increase in corporate funding. Among the highlights of the programme have been exhibitions such as "Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture", "Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors", "Yves Klein", "The Naked Truth: Klimt, Egon Schiele, Kokoschka and Other Scandals", "Women Impressionists" and "Edvard Munch. The Modern Eye". With projects such as "Playing the City 3" or "Street Art Brazil", he expanded his programming into urban spaces of Frankfurt.Bunte Straßen: Street-Art Brazil in Frankfurt, Focus (magazine), accessed on 13 November 2013 (German). At the Schirn, his frequent collaborator was noted art historian Olivier Berggruen. In 2007 Hollein advocated against the demolition of the Schirn Rotunda and instead initiated a commission series with contemporary artists like Barbara Kruger, Ayse Erkmen, Rosa Barba or Heather Phillipson to create site specific works at the rotunda.Abriss der Schirn-Rotunde „nicht koalitionsfähig", Frankfurter Allhgemeine Zeitung, accessed on 2 July 2022 (German). Its online and digital outreach has been significantly advanced and the Schirn publishes its own wide-reaching online magazine "Schirn Mag" since 2011. 2014, Hollein opened the Minishirn – a creative space for children.Warum Ausstellungen langweilig sind und wo man die besten Höhlen baut, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Retrieved 2 July 2022MINISCHIRN – Spiel- und Lernparcours in der Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Website German Design Award, accessed on 29 June 2022 (German). By 2019, the Schirn had attracted more than 8.8 million visitors to over 240 exhibitions. For many years now, the Schirn has been the most popular art institution in the Rhine-Main region.SCHIRN Kunsthalle Frankfurt, mutualart.com, accessed on 29 June 2022. In 2012 the Schirn had its best-attended year so far with a total of 479,121 visitors.Historic Attendance Records, Press Release by Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, accessed on 8 April 2015 (broken link)
Städel Museum
In addition to his directorship at the Schirn, Hollein became the Director and CEO of the Städel Museum in 2006. At the Städel Museum, Hollein introduced a wide spectrum of new exhibition formats. Hollein realised major exhibitions on the Old Masters, including "Cranach the Elder", "The Master of Flémalle and Rogier van der Weyden", and "From Titian to Tiepolo", "Botticelli", and "Albrecht Dürer" and "Maniera", as well as significant retrospectives on modern masters such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Beckmann.Mit seinen blonden Supermodels erzog Botticelli Männer zu besseren Menschen, Neue Züricher Zeitung, accessed on 4 July 2022Museum Directors Under 40: A Brief History of 20 Young Leaders Who Helped Shape Their Institutions, ARTnews, accessed on 4 July 2022 Under Hollein, special emphasis was also given to the development of the collection: between 2006 and 2012 more than 1,500 works were added to the collection, including previously underrepresented media such as photographs, and works by female artists. He expanded the Städel its holdings of contemporary art and started organizing exhibitions on contemporary artists such as Piero Manzoni and, John Baldessari, or and "Georg Baselitz: The Heroes". Among the most significant projects worthy of mention in this context was the major expansion of the Städel Museum completed in 2012 which doubled the institution's gallery space and created a new wing for the presentation of art since 1945. Both the architecture as well as the significant collection development were hailed by the public and the media. More than 50 percent of the 52 million euro construction costs were raised through private sources in an unprecedented fundraising campaign. The Städel was honoured as "Museum of the Year 2012" by the German art critics association AICA in 2012.Aica, accessed on 8 April 2015 In the same year, the museum recorded its highest ever attendance numbers, with 447,395 visitors. To mark the 200th anniversary of the Städel in 2015, Hollein significantly expanded the museum's reach with the launch of new digital education formats, such as Art History Online and Café DeutschlandEndlich Kunst verstehen! Deutschlandfunk, 4 April 2016 (German)."Städel Museum 2.0" (29 March 2015), Deutsche Welle.
Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung
Under Hollein's directorship, from 2006 to 2016,Max Hollein wechselt nach San Francisco, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, accessed on 8 July 2022 (German) the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung underwent the greatest reorganisation of its infrastructure since 1990. The Art of Ancient Egypt and Antiquities, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque to Neoclassicism as well as the "studioli" on the top floor of the museum villa were newly installed under his tenure and reopened in 2008 with an entirely new color and lighting concept. Funding for this major renovation came to a large extent from private and corporate sources. Exhibitions such as "Sahure – Death and Life of a Great Pharaoh", "Gods in Color ", "Franz Xaver Messerschmidt" were received with unprecedented attention. "Gods in Color" underlines the museum's leading role in polychromy research and became a traveling exhibition with more than 20 venues, including the Ny Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Copenhagen, Vatican Museums Rome, Archeological Museum Istanbul, Getty Villa Los Angeles, or Palacio de las Bellas Artes Mexico.Farbenfrohe Antike, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, accessed on 7 July 2022 (German) Of note was also the exhibition "Jeff Koons: The Sculptor", as part of the two-part survey together with the Schirn Kunsthalle. In the presentation at the Liebieghaus, both world-renowned and new sculptural works by Koons entered into a dialogue with the historic building and its collection spanning 5,000 years of sculpture.Engel, Sex und Sau, Der Spiegel, accessed on 7 July 2022 (German)
In 2012 the Liebieghaus had 153,737 visitors, making it the best attended year in the history of the institution.Jeff Koons Liebieghaus, Website by Liebieghaus, accessed on 8 April 2015
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Hollein assumed the role of Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco on 1 June 2016.Catherine Bigelow (27 June 2016) "A fine welcome for Fine Arts Museums' new chief", San Francisco Chronicle. In this capacity, he managed an operating budget of $60 million and over 500 employees.
During his time in office, Hollein instituted a major restructuring of the museum organization and added the institution's first contemporary curator; Claudia Schmuckli. He also successfully launched a contemporary art initiative, bringing the work of living artists into dialogue with the buildings and collections of the de Young Museum and Legion of Honor, with exhibitions by Urs Fischer, Sarah Lucas and Sarah Lucas and Julian Schnabel at the Legion of Honor and Carsten Nicolai and Leonardo Drew at the de Young museum. In January 2017, the institution announced a significant new addition to its collection of American art through the acquisition of 62 works by 22 contemporary African American artists, including Thornton Dial's Blood And Meat: Survival For the World (1992) and Lost Cows (2000–1), Joe Light's Dawn (1988), Jessie T. Pettway's Bars and String-Pierced Columns (1950's), Lonnie Holley's Him and Her Hold the Root (1994) and Joe Minter's Camel at the Watering Hole (1995)), celebrated in the exhibition "Revelations: Art from the African American South". Hollein opened several critically acclaimed exhibitions, including The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of Seventeenth Century France, Frank Stella: A Retrospective, Danny Lyon: Message to the Future, Monet: The Earl Years and Stuart Davis: In Full Swing. Ed Ruscha and the Great American West, Cult of the Machine, and The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll which drew almost 270,000 visitors and 400.000 online visits from around the world, making the exhibition"The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll Closes with Record Attendance Numbers", Press Release by de Young Museum, accessed on 20 September 2017. the highest attendance in recent years.Hollein expanded the de Young furthermore on the encyclopedic focus of its program, with exhibitions such as Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire, The Maori Portraits: Gottfried Lindauer's New Zealand, and Contemporary Muslim Fashions. This exhibition was especially praised for the curatorial consultation with and engagement of Muslim representatives from throughout the Bay Area.
Hollein also expanded the institution's educational outreach, including digital interactive tools to prepare for exhibitions, and the construction of the DeYoungster's Studio – a learning space that fosters children's curiosity and understanding of art.Mediating Faith and Style: Museums Awake to Muslim Fashions, The New York Times, accessed on 7 July 2022.Rodin, Muslim style and hippie chic, The Art Newspaper, accessed on 7 July 2022.
Metropolitan Museum of Art