Brooklyn Museum hires curator to reshape contemporary art program

Robert Wiesenberger is stepping into a role that's been empty for two years. As the Brooklyn Museum's new senior curator of contemporary art, he's inheriting both opportunity and momentum—a position last held by Eugenie Tsai, who shaped the museum's direction for 15 years before departing in 2023.

Wiesenberger arrives from the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he's spent recent years championing artists who don't fit the traditional museum narrative. He mounted the first major survey for Lin May Saeed and created space for voices ranging from Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio to Kandis Williams—work that signals where his attention lands: artists of different backgrounds working across different mediums.

What makes this appointment notable isn't just the hire itself, but what it says about where the Brooklyn Museum is heading. The institution has long leaned heavily on its 19th-century collection—Impressionism, the safe canon. Wiesenberger's track record suggests a different vision: one that treats contemporary art not as a separate wing but as the living heart of the museum's mission.

He's already thought about this deeply. "Brooklyn is full of incredible artists," he said in a statement, and his plan is straightforward: get to know them. Make the museum feel like home for the people making work right now, not just the people visiting it. He used to sketch in the Brooklyn Museum's galleries weekly, rotating between there, the botanic garden, and the public library—the kind of casual, recurring relationship many New Yorkers have with their neighborhood institutions. He wants to build that feeling back.

Museum director Anne Pasternak framed the hire in institutional terms: "His expertise and vision will undoubtedly expand and enrich the stories we are able to tell." Translation: the collection matters less than what you do with it. A two-year vacancy in contemporary art curation is a long time in museum years. What Wiesenberger builds in the next few seasons will likely shape how the Brooklyn Museum positions itself against larger competitors and how it serves the artists and audiences actually living in the borough.