lucky pot The Hammer Museum Chooses a New Director

For nearly 25 years, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles has been closely identified with its transformative director, Ann Philbin, who last year said that she planned to retire. On Monday the museum announced that it had found a worthy — if little known — successor: Zoë Ryan, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania since 2020.

Philbin, 72, will step down in November, and Ryan, 47, will take over on Jan. 1, 2025.

“She admired Annie and she’s going to continue on that path and find new routes to get further,” said Marcy Carsey, the television producer and chairman of the Hammer, which is part of the University of California, Los Angeles. “It doesn’t hurt that she has experience running a museum that’s connected to a university.”

In a telephone interview last week, Ryan called the Hammer “one of the most inventive and exciting museums in the country today,” adding that she loved its “interdisciplinarity and the expansiveness of the program.”

“The Hammer shares my values and interests,” she continued. “Its mission is artist-centered, its programs are at the intersection of art and social justice and it is connected with the university as a place of learning.”

ImageThe Hammer’s $90 million renovation created a more welcoming entrance on Wilshire Boulevard, a main Los Angeles thoroughfare.Credit...Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock

Ryan will take over the Hammer at a time when the museum has achieved solid footing as an influential institution with an international reputation for showing contemporary art.

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