Four major North Texas museums have recently appointed new directors, and two others have announced departures.
It’s an unprecedented changing of the guard, and it’s happening at a time when nationally political tensions are high, federal grant funding is low and attendance hasn’t fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, here in North Texas, this moment also has immense opportunities with a global audience set to descend on Dallas for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and new residents moving to the area in droves.
“On the one hand, I think it's a really exciting time to be at the helm of a museum because there's so much happening politically and socially that is fodder for really excellent art,” said Lucia Simek. She is the executive director of the Dallas Contemporary, a non-collecting museum in the Design District. She’s one of a handful of arts professionals KERA asked to reflect on challenges and opportunities these new leaders will face.
“On the other hand, it is really difficult to make long-term decisions for an institution when so much is being reframed politically and socially.”
Here are the new leaders:
- Brian Ferriso, Dallas Museum of Art: Ferriso will begin his new role Dec. 1 after almost two decades leading the Portland Art Museum.
- Carlos Basualdo, Nasher Sculpture Center: Basualdo joined the museum in May. He previously worked at the Philadelphia Art Museum, formerly the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He was hired there as a senior curator in 2005 and became its chief curator and deputy director in 2022.
- Halona Norton-Westbrook, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: Norton-Westbrook started her new role in July following five years at the helm of the Honolulu Museum of Art.
- Lisa Brown Ross, African American Museum of Dallas: Brown Ross took over in July. Brown Ross has had a long career in public affairs and strategic communications, including her most recent role as the director of marketing and development at the Dallas nonprofit Anthem Strong Families.
- The top job at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art is vacant. Andrew J. Walker left his post in August after 14 years at the museum.
- The president and CEO of the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation will step down at the end of 2025. Chris Cassidy joined the foundation in 2021 and shepherded the museum’s construction and grand opening. The foundation oversees the Arlington museum, monument and leadership institute.
“My sense is that it's just a sort of interesting coincidence that so many of our large cultural institutions are seeing a changing of the guard right now,” said Adam Jasienski, associate professor of art history at Southern Methodist University.
“It also speaks to the fact that we have so many museums in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex that we could list probably double of that where the directors have been in place for five or 10 or 15 years and aren't changing.”
Four of the six who recently left their roles had led their institutions for over a decade. The remaining two had tenures that were less than 10 years.
Notably, Marla Price led the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth for more than 30 years, and Harry Robinson Jr., founding director of the African American Museum of Dallas, oversaw the museum for more than 50 years.
Jeremy Strick led the Nasher Sculpture Center for 15 years and Andrew J. Walker left the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth after 14 years at the helm.
Chris Cassidy at Arlington’s National Medal of Honor Museum announced he would leave by the end of 2025 after four years with the museum, and Agustín Arteaga stepped down from the Dallas Museum of Art after eight years.
Collecting profiles, strategic priorities and the institutions that art museums collaborate with are some of the places where changes in leadership can be most visible.
The degree to which the general public might notice varies based on the institution and its size, SMU’s Jasienski said.
“The DMA is such a large and robust institution that I think that the casual museumgoer probably wouldn't perceive the fact that there has been this gap,” he said. “Also because there was an amazing person serving as interim director, and most of the senior staff positions have been filled by people who've been in this institution for a long time.”
At a smaller institution, like the African American Museum of Dallas, the change is likely more noticeable, Jasienski continued.
“The director had been so present and for so long, I think that perhaps visitors would be aware of it just because the director had such an outsize importance in that institution,” he said. “We're lucky that we have such a sort of vibrant museum culture in the metroplex. And, I think, these institutions know how to keep running and keep doing the good work they're doing, even as they wait for the new directors to step in.”
For Jasienski, these changes create an interesting moment for North Texas’ art scene.
“I see it as actually something very exciting and positive that I think there's gonna be a lot of interesting initiatives and new growth happening,” he said.
Challenges
The main pressures facing museums right now all fall under what Marilyn Jackson, president and CEO of the American Alliance of Museums, calls the “arc of sustainability.”
This arc includes government funding, philanthropic giving, staffing, increasing costs, scrutiny around programming as well as travel and tourism.
The American Alliance of Museums, a nonprofit that represents approximately 35,000 museums, estimates that 40% of museums receive some type of federal funding.
Approximately one-third of museums had a government grant or contract canceled this year.
In addition to the general public, these cuts have resulted in canceled or reduced programming for students, rural communities, individuals with disabilities, the elderly and veterans.
“A museum that is losing [a] $50,000 grant, that's very significant. The museum has to make that up somewhere to close their budget,” Jackson said. “And it's not easy to find an additional $50,000 in the middle of the year.”
Beyond that, the alliance found that one-fifth of all museums, regardless of whether they had government grants or contracts canceled, have deferred physical infrastructure improvements or construction.
At the same time, museums are seeing a change in philanthropic giving, Jackson noted.
“A lot of our larger philanthropists are getting older and are maybe no longer making decisions about their philanthropy. Those decisions are being passed on to their children or others,” she explained. “The children may not feel as tied to that organization as parents did, and so you have to reset that relationship.”
On top of this, museums are facing challenges with staff retention and increasing costs for maintaining facilities, energy and insurance.
All this is happening when international tourism is down across the country. Dallas is forecast to see 8% fewer visitors this year, according to reporting by The Dallas Morning News.
Less than half of U.S. museums are seeing their attendance at or above pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent survey by the American Alliance of Museums. Finally, museums are also seeing increased scrutiny of their programming.
The Trump administration has said museums should “celebrate American exceptionalism.”
There are many examples of exceptionalism in our country, Jackson said, but understanding that history requires context.
“You can't tell that full story if you don't start from the beginning,” she said. “For instance, I'll just pick … the Tuskegee Airmen. They were exceptional in the fact that they were a group of men that weren't given access to training and became great aviators. Through finding training elsewhere they then became part of our military. But if you don't start from when they were denied access to training because they were Black, how do you tell that story of exceptionalism?”
Despite these challenges, Jackson has described the public’s trust in museums as a “superpower.”
“The public overwhelmingly supports museums and they really want their programming to be funded and to be inclusive to the entire community,” Jackson said.
Opportunities
Museums in North Texas have the opportunity to expand the number of visitors they reach.
Millions are expected to visit the region next summer for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and the Dallas-Fort Worth area is projected to hit 10 million residents in the next 10 years.
Vicki Meek, an artist, activist and former head of the South Dallas Cultural Center, said that community support is vital for arts organizations big and small.
“They have to really be engaged with the community so that the community feels like these institutions are theirs. … If you don't have your programming rooted in the community, then who's gonna really fight for you when the time comes for the fight?” she said.
There are many opportunities to build up those relationships across the city, and Meek said that work starts by looking outside of the museum’s own walls.
“You have to be talking to that community to understand who they are. You can't assume that you know what that community wants,” she said.
“You can't do things like, ‘Oh, February we'll do African-American programming; oh, September we'll do some Latinx programming.’ You can't think of your community as that kind of segmented breakdown.”
Instead, Meek said, leaders should be engaging in conversations that help them see how the community can be integrated into all facets of the museum.
The cultural fabric of North Texas is rich and ripe for collaboration, said Janeil Engelstad, artist, activist and founder and director of Make Art With Purpose. The nonprofit uses art and design to address social and environmental concerns.
Engelstad hopes the new leaders will work together in new ways.
“There's strength in numbers,” she said. “When organizations and people come together and act as collectives, there is a broader ability to stand for your values and to continue the good work that's being done or that represents your mission.”
For Simek, of the Dallas Contemporary, art’s role in society is especially important in times of uncertainty.
“I think it's so important to have a place where you go in as a private citizen and you are able to encounter … an idea or a position that is not yours, that you do not share, but that adds to your vocabulary of human experience,” she said.
“Museums offer the occasion for those encounters. They frame those encounters.”Beyond that, she continued, art can be a balm. “We have this exhibition coming up this fall [Pam Evelyn: Salvaged Future] which is just like really big, beautiful, abstract paintings,” Simek said.
“Everybody, I feel, needs a kind of reset right now to just be like, ‘I wanna get lost in the luxurious texture of this painting’ and have a ... respite from the swirl of other thoughts.”
