New Senior StaffHello Museum

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Senior Management Team

Lisa Phillips

Lisa Phillips has been the Toby Devan Lewis Director of the New Museum since 1999. During her tenure she has dramatically expanded the Museum, its Board, staff, attendance, and budget, and continues to diversify its leadership and audience. Phillips spearheaded and realized the Museum’s first dedicated building (2007) designed by the leading architects SANAA, who subsequently won the Pritzker Prize. In so doing, she established the Museum as a top international cultural destination with a critically acclaimed exhibition program rivaling the best in the world. Phillips also co-founded NEW INC (2014), the first museum-led incubator for cultural creatives. She is currently leading a second building expansion by OMA/Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas.

Previously Phillips was a curator at the Whitney Museum, where she organized mid-career surveys of Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, and Terry Winters, as well as thematic exhibitions, including “ High Styles: 20th Century American Design” (1985); “Image World: Art and Media Culture” (1989); “Beat Culture and the New America” (1995); and “The American Century” (1999); among many others. She has authored over thirty books, lectured extensively around the world, was on the Fulbright Review Committee, and is a visiting critic at Yale University. She has been named a “Top New Yorker” by New York Magazine, “Top 100 Business Women of the Year” by Crain’s, and “Most Creative People in Business” by Fast Company.

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Isolde Brielmaier

Dr. Isolde Brielmaier is the Laura Skoler Deputy Director of the New Museum. She oversees the areas of marketing, communications, digital content production, and NEW INC, and works closely with the Director on all Museum key initiatives. From 2014 to 2020, Brielmaier was Executive Director and Curator of Arts, Culture, and Community at Westfield World Trade Center, where she developed artist projects, cultural events, and strategic partnerships across the organization. She also served as Professor of Critical Studies in Tisch’s Department of Photography, Imaging, and Emerging Media at New York University, and is currently Guest Curator at the International Center for Photography in NYC.

She sits on the editorial boards of several media outlets and art journals, and speaks regularly on art, culture, and social impact. Brielmaier is also on the board of the Women’s Prison Association and serves as an advisor to Malaika, an all-girls school in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Brielmaier holds a PhD in Art History and Critical Studies from Columbia University.

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Richard Drysdale

Richard Drysdale was appointed Vice President of Finance and Administration at the New Museum in 2019. In this role, he oversees the finance, human resources, and IT departments, bringing extensive experience from the visual and performing arts sectors. Prior to joining the New Museum, Drysdale was Director of Corporate Services at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), where he supervised finance, human resources, IT, building services, administration, archives, and design departments. He also steered the MCA’s strategic planning process, government relations, legal services, union relations, and major infrastructure change projects. Drysdale also served as Head of Finance & Operations for Belvoir Theatre Company and Belvoir Street Theatre; Head of Finance & Administration for the Biennale of Sydney; and in executive positions with the Australian National Playwrights’ Centre and the Newtown and Edge Theatres. Drysdale received his MBA in Arts Management from the University of Technology, Sydney, and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Authentic Leadership Program.

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Massimiliano Gioni

Massimiliano Gioni is the Edlis Neeson Artistic Director. He leads the New Museum’s curatorial team and is responsible for the Museum’s exhibition program. As a member of the senior management team, he works closely with the Director and has broad responsibilities for museum-wide planning.

Gioni has curated exhibitions by John Akomfrah, Pawel Althamer, Ed Atkins, Lynda Benglis, Tacita Dean, Nicole Eisenman, Urs Fischer, Hans Haacke, Camille Henrot, Carsten Höller, Kahlil Joseph, Ragnar Kjartansson, Sarah Lucas, Gustav Metzger, Marta Minujin, Chris Ofili, Raymond Pettibon, Carol Rama, Faith Ringgold, Pipilotti Rist, Anri Sala, Peter Saul, Nari Ward, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, among others. He has organized major group shows including “After Nature” (2008); “Ostalgia” (2011); “Here and Elsewhere” (2014); “The Keeper” (2016); and “Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America” (2021), an exhibition originally conceived by Okwui Enwezor and realized in collaboration with Naomi Beckwith, Glenn Ligon, and Mark Nash.

Gioni’s international exhibitions include “The Warmth of Other Suns” at the Phillips Collection (Washington DC, 2019); “The Restless Earth” (Milan, Triennale, 2017) and “The Great Mother” (Milan Expo at Palazzo Reale, 2015), both with the Trussardi Foundation; the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); 10th Gwangju Biennale (2010); New Museum Triennial (2009); Berlin Biennale (2006); and Manifesta 5 (2004).

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Regan Grusy

Regan Grusy is the New Museum’s Chief of Staff and Vice President, Partnerships. She works closely with the Director, staff, and trustees to execute the Museum’s strategic priorities. Grusy previously served as Chief of Staff for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, and as the head of development for both Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Exit Art. She was also the Director of Development of the New Museum from 2006 to 2010 and Associate Director of the New Museum from 2010 to 2015. Grusy holds an MA in arts administration from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in studio art from Beloit College. She is a mentor for NEW INC, the New Museum’s incubator, and serves on the board of Triple Canopy in New York.

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Dennis Szakacs

Dennis Szakacs is the Chief Operating Officer at the New Museum and oversees facilities, security, visitor services, retail, food service, and capital projects, including the new OMA-designed expansion that will double the Museum’s size. Szakacs was Director and CEO of the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) in Newport Beach, California from 2003 to 2013, and prior to OCMA was Deputy Director of the New Museum and Managing Director of MoMA PS1. At OCMA, Szakacs led the organization of over sixty exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, many of which toured throughout the United States and Europe; expanded the museum’s scholarly publications; and added more than 200 major works to the museum’s collection. He also developed OCMA’s new Thom Mayne designed facility at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

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Keila Tennent

Keila Tennent, General Counsel and Vice President, Community, joined the New Museum in April 2021. She is responsible for all legal matters and for supporting the senior staff’s operational oversight of the Museum. Tennent previously worked for other organizations specializing in non-profit and labor and employment law. Tennent holds a BA from Amherst College and a JD from Vanderbilt University School of Law.

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Diane Vivona

Diane Vivona was appointed Vice President, Advancement of the New Museum in 2021 after serving as Director of Development since 2018, and Director of Institutional Giving from 2015-2018. In this role, Vivona oversees the institution’s comprehensive fundraising efforts, including individual and institutional giving, membership, special events, and board relations. Prior to joining the Museum, Vivona held leadership roles at Art21, Chashama, and The Field, and served as Associate Director at David Bury and Associates. Her career in development initiated from her work as an independent performing artist and her advocacy for art and artists continues to be a driving force throughout her professional work. Previous to her arts administration roles, she worked in the studio, performed internationally, and taught at institutions of higher learning in the US and United Kingdom.

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Program Leadership

Salome Asega

Salome Asega was appointed Director of NEW INC, the New Museum’s cultural incubator for creative practitioners working across art, design, and technology, in 2021. Asega is also an artist, researcher, and educator working between participatory design and emerging technologies. Prior to joining NEW INC, Asega was the inaugural New Media Art Research Fellow for Creativity and Free Expression at the Ford Foundation, where she supported artists and organizations in the new media arts ecosystem. She is also a cofounder of POWRPLNT, a digital art collaboratory based in Brooklyn that offers free and sliding-scale workshops run by established media artists. Since 2015, Asega has been teaching studio and design methodology courses in the MFA Design and Technology program at Parsons School of Design.

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Gary Carrion-Murayari

Gary Carrion-Murayari is the Kraus Family Senior Curator at the New Museum. Since he joined the Museum in 2010, Carrion-Murayari has curated monographic exhibitions of many artists including John Akomfrah, Thomas Bayrle, Phyllida Barlow, Ellen Gallagher, Hans Haacke, Haroon Mirza, Raymond Pettibon, Jim Shaw, and Nari Ward. He has also co-curated group exhibitions including the 2018 New Museum Triennial, “Songs for Sabotage;” “The Equilibrists” (2016) at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece; and “Ghosts in the Machine” (2012), among others. Prior to joining the New Museum, Carrion-Murayari worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 2003 to 2010, where he co-curated the 2010 Whitney Biennial.

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Vivian Crockett

Vivian Crockett joined the New Museum as Curator in 2022. Previously, she was the Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA). Prior to the DMA, Crockett was a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art and an Andrew W. Mellon Museum Research Consortium Fellow in the department of Media and Performance Art at The Museum of Modern Art. She previously worked as a research associate at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and as an independent curator with various organizations including Visual AIDS, for whom she co-curated the 2017 Day With(out) Art: Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings. A PhD candidate in art history at Columbia University, she holds a BA in art history from Stanford University and an MA and MPhil in art history from Columbia.

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Photo: onwhitewall.com

Alethea Rockwell

Alethea Rockwell joined the New Museum as Keith Haring Director of Education and Public Engagement in 2023. She oversees the Museum’s education initiatives and public programs, including artist residencies, programs for families, teenagers, and teachers, and partnerships with local organizations. Previously, Rockwell was Associate Educator, Public Engagement and Artist Programs, at the Museum of Modern Art and a curatorial assistant at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She holds a master’s degree from the Courtauld Institute of Art and has lectured and published on the intersections of education and contemporary art.