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Museum Spotlight New Director
WELCOMING OUR NEW SYBIL HARRINGTON DIRECTOR + CEO JEREMYMIKOLAJCZAK
Earlier this year, Phoenix Art Museum selected Jeremy Mikolajczak (Mikoh-lay-zack) to serve as the Museum’s new Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. He brings to the institution significant experience as a museum director and curator, with a special focus on community engagement and education, having previously served as executive director, chief curator, curatorial fellow, and faculty with museums and learning institutions across the country. Mikolajczak comes to the Valley of the Sun from our sister city to the south, where he has served as the Jon and Linda Ender Director and CEO of Tucson Museum of Art. Mikolajczak led the organization through a period of exceptional growth including overseeing a capital campaign that powered strategic expansions to the TMA campus and enabled the museum to better engage its multicultural community, including the establishment and renovation of the Alice Chaiten Baker Center for Art Education and the Kasser Family Wing of Latin American Art. Along with his experience leading a museum in Arizona, Mikolajczak also led a museum in a major metropolitan region, having served as the executive director and chief curator of the Miami-Dade College Museum and Galleries of Art + Design, where he oversaw a network of six campus galleries and an international sculpture garden, founded the Museum of Art + Design, established the Cuban Exile Experience located in downtown Miami’s Freedom Tower, and helped to grow the institution’s annual impact to more than 100,000 visitors. Mikolajczak has also served as a scholar and educator at the University of Florida (Gainesville) and the University of Central Missouri. Mikolajczak studied studio art and art history, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from West Virginia University, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he specialized in painting and printmaking. As he prepares to relocate to the Valley of the Sun, he will be joined by his wife, Ana Tello, and their two children. Mikolajczak grew up in Michigan, in one of the tri-cities north of Detroit, where he first discovered his love of art and museums at the Detroit Institute of Art. He has now called Arizona home for more than six years, and is excited to lay down roots in the capital city. “I am thrilled to be joining this exceptional museum and leading the next phase of Phoenix Art Museum and its prominent role as the foremost institution of our region,” said Mikolajczak. “Having spent the last six years in Arizona, I have greatly admired the work of the world-class museum, its incredible history, extensive collection, and exemplary scholarship. I feel genuinely privileged for the opportunity to work with a dedicated board, museum patrons, and diverse community, as well as an outstanding staff that mirrors my enthusiasm and drive to shape the future of a dynamic and inclusive Phoenix Art Museum. At a time of tremendous growth and opportunity in the Valley, I look forward to building upon the outstanding achievements of my predecessors and advancing the Museum’s commitment to innovation and engagement.” He will begin his tenure with Phoenix Art Museum on April 18, 2022.
/// JEREMY MIKOLAJCZAK, INCOMING SYBIL HARRINGTON DIRECTOR AND CEO ///
FROM PAGE 7 in support for the development of the institution’s bilingual website along with support for other enterprise-wide innovations in technology. As of September 12, 2021, Piper Trust had also provided more than $400,000 of general operating support to the Museum since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This recent grant of $4 million will further support general operations at Phoenix Art Museum, along with opportunities for both conservation and innovation that will better enable the Museum to serve its communities. Phoenix Art Museum is also deeply grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which has named the Museum the recipient of a grant totaling more than $240,000 as part of the American Rescue Plan that the U.S. Congress passed in March 2021. The Museum’s first NEH grant since 2012, the award provided support for the special-engagement exhibition Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West and an accompanying publication that adds contemporary voices to existing scholarship on mining-related art.
LENHARDT LECTURE
On October 27, PhxArt presented the 2021 Lenhardt Lecture featuring internationally renowned artist Derek Fordjour. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, to parents of Ghanaian heritage, Fordjour creates large-scale works that examine the power, performance, vulnerabilities, and martyrdom inherent in the Black experience. His work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, and reviews and features on his work have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal, among many others. The lecture was presented in-person in the Museum’s Whiteman Hall and virtually for audiences outside of Arizona. The lecture coincided with the Museum’s recent acquisition of Fordjour’s The Futility of Achievement (2020) with funds from the newly expanded Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. The large-scale painting is on view now in the Museum’s Marshall and Hendler galleries in the lower level of the Katz Wing.
ONLINE ACCESS FOR MEMBERS
Beginning in Spring 2022, Phoenix Art Museum will transition its online purchasing system for tickets to the Museum, Membership renewals and purchases, and so much more to a new platform. Still accessible through phxart.org, the new system will fully integrate online point-of-sale purchases with the Museum’s Membership and donor databases, ensuring our ability to provide better service for all visitors and Members, while also enabling us to improve our ability to recognize all Members for their generosity to the Museum. PhxArt Members will receive an email from the Museum with instructions for creating their new online accounts, which will replace previous usernames and passwords. Look for an email titled New Login Procedures for Our Members in the coming weeks for details.
FROM PAGE 7 art, has extend his areas of focus to benefit the arts. “It’s something that we’ve been passionate about for a number of years—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” Beachum said in a video released by the Arizona Cardinals, “and this year we get to focus on the arts, how important it is for people to get involved with the arts, how important it is for our society to understand how important the arts are to our society historically and from the contemporary end as well. This is where our economy is going—a creator economy.” An avid collector, Beachum has loaned work to Phoenix Art Museum so that members of the community can experience work from the Jessica and Kelvin Beachum Family Collection. On display into 2022 in the Museum’s Katz Wing for Modern Art, visitors can view Vaughn Spann’s Fleeting memories and lasting moments (2019). Beachum has also loaned numerous artworks for an upcoming exhibition titled Narrative as Reality: A World Reimagined, which opened earlier this year at the Hawn Gallery in Dallas, part of the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU, his alma mater. In addition to sharing works from his collection with audiences across the Southwest, the offensive tackle, who has played for the Cardinals since 2020 and was recently named the organization’s Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee in his second year with the team, hopes to expand his relationship with Arizona schools as part of his commitment to educational outreach. Phoenix Art Museum and Beachum are currently working together to create opportunities for classes from the Valley’s Title-I schools to meet with the football player and tour the Museum’s galleries during field trips throughout 2022 and beyond. Phoenix Art Museum is deeply grateful to both Jessica and Kelvin Beachum and to the NFL for their support of the arts and arts education in our city and region.
image credits: Arizona Cardinals.
