New Hirshhorn Museum director

Richard Koshalek has been named director of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, effective April 13.

Koshalek, 67, was president of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., from 1999 until January 2009. Before that, he served as director of The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles for nearly 20 years.

"Richard Koshalek has vast experience in both the education and museum worlds," said Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough. "His creativity brought modern and contemporary art to bear on issues of the day and will help the museum and the Institution reach broad audiences in technologically and aesthetically exciting new ways."

"I am immensely excited to come to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden," said Koshalek. "This institution, more than most, is at the perfect time and place to make a unique contribution not only to the history of modern and contemporary art, but to the larger appreciation of the role of the arts in society. Given its place in the nation's capital, as well as its proximity to a peerless range of cultural, diplomatic and civic resources, the Hirshhorn can be a catalyst for new creative and collaborative energy in many arenas."

We are also hoping that Koshalek discovers the museum's proximity to a large number of world class art galleries and an immense number of DC area artists, both of which, with a few and notable rare exceptions, have been largely ignored by the Hirshhorn in the past.

"In the past it seemed that Hirshhorn curators found it easier to visit Berlin or New York, or any place for that matter, rather than their own city, when looking for emerging artists or new innovative work in commercial galleries," Campello Vulcan-melded into Koshalek's mind. "Not anymore," he added, "there's a new sheriff in town."