Jorge Daniel Veneciano, director of the Sheldon Museum of Art, has announced his resignation effective March 1. He will become director of New York’s El Museo del Barrio.
“It is with mixed emotions that I announce my resignation,” Veneciano wrote in a Dec. 12 message to the Sheldon Art Association and Advisory Board. “As you know, I dearly love the Sheldon Museum, which made this decision a very difficult one.”
He is the fourth director of the Sheldon, which turned 50 this year. Veneciano has directed the museum since 2008.
“I have from the beginning been committed to seeing the museum through its anniversary year and feel that, collectively, we have accomplished major milestones recently—for which I am proud on behalf of the museum’s hard-working staff and for which I thank you for making these accomplishments possible.”
Veneciano is a scholar of modern and contemporary art and has taught at Columbia University and in the Graduate Studies Division of the Rhode Island School of Design. His books include The Geometric Unconscious: A Century of Abstraction, which won three national awards and Fabulous Harlequin: Orlan and the Patchwork Self, which won First Prize at AAM’s publication awards. He is series editor at the University of Nebraska Press for the series American Transnationalism: Perspectives from the Sheldon Museum of Art. He is also the founding editor of artland magazine – a statewide arts advocacy magazine for the arts across Nebraska.
Veneciano has been committed to rethinking museum education and museum organizational structures to enhance their alignment with the needs of a democratic society.
“I still have much to do in the time that remains and wish to ready the museum for its immediate future,” he said.
“For the past five years, Daniel has been a groundbreaking leader for the Sheldon,” Chancellor Harvey Perlman said. “His knowledge of and commitment to modern and transnational art will serve him well in his new role. He will be missed and we wish him the very best.”
The next step in the future of Sheldon’s leadership will take place early next year, Perlman said.
“We will conduct a national search for a director in early 2014,” he said. “The Sheldon is a world-class museum of art and we expect to attract world-class candidates for this position.”
