{"id":930220,"date":"2026-10-12T12:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T12:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/930220\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T12:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T12:14:13","slug":"hammer-museum-director-zoe-ryan-has-bold-ideas-for-the-next-chapter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/930220\/","title":{"rendered":"Hammer Museum Director Zo\u00eb Ryan has bold ideas for the next chapter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Palisades and Eaton fires erupted on Zo\u00eb Ryan\u2019s second day as director of the Hammer Museum at UCLA. Her family was in Philadelphia, and she barely knew her new colleagues, but she was suddenly responsible for an institution where staff members were being evacuated and employees or their relatives lost homes.<\/p>\n

It was an abrupt test for a leader succeeding Ann Philbin<\/a>, who retired in 2024 after transforming the Hammer over a quarter-century through inventive exhibitions and high-profile expansion. Hammer board chair Eric Esrailian recalled that Ryan immediately focused on the safety of the staff and museum community.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe conveyed empathy in that situation and reassured people: This is affecting everyone simultaneously,\u201d he said. \u201cIt forced her to immediately reach out to the surrounding community \u2026 and to try to build some relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The UCLA Hammer Museum has expanded over the years, and is now looking to strengthen its educational offerings.<\/p>\n

(Eric Staudenmaier)<\/p>\n

Nearly two years in, Ryan is using the platform Philbin built as the foundation for the Hammer\u2019s next era. At an institution with a fiscal operating budget of about $30.4 million, she is seeking to place educational initiatives on equal footing with exhibitions, pursuing collaborations across the city, and positioning the Hammer as the anchor of a Westside arts district. <\/p>\n

\u201cI take seriously the Hammer being a catalyst for art and ideas,\u201d said Ryan, who grew up in Kent, England, and was curator of architecture and design at the Art Institute of Chicago before leading the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. \u201cI want us to lean into that. That means supporting artists; it means supporting staff in doing really bold projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan sees the Hammer as \u201cmaking the art history of the future,\u201d an ambition reflected in two fall retrospectives that bring greater attention to women long overlooked: the largest U.S. survey of Lebanese artist Huguette Caland<\/a>, which opened Sept. 27, and the first major museum survey of Jamaican-born geometric abstractionist Mavis Pusey, which opened over the weekend. (Pusey has another exhibit at the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, running through Jan. 3.) <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A installation view of the new Mavis Pusey exhibition at the Hammer Museum.<\/p>\n

(Sarah M. Golonka)<\/p>\n

Artist Tala Madani, co-chair of the museum\u2019s artist council, which meets regularly with institutional leadership, said Ryan\u2019s arrival has been seamless in that she has not seen \u201ca notable shift\u201d between Ryan and her predecessor. \u201cSome people come in [and] start slashing everything,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no need for that, and it\u2019s not happening.\u201d Madani also praised Ryan for \u201creally trying to hear and listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Los Angeles County Museum of Art Chief Executive Michael Govan sees Ryan\u2019s opportunity as different from the one Philbin encountered 25 years earlier. By building the Hammer\u2019s audience, programs and campus, he said, Philbin left Ryan \u201ca robust infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnnie couldn\u2019t have done what Zo\u00eb\u2019s going to do because Annie couldn\u2019t have built the program, built the infrastructure and then [executed] it [before she retired],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Lulu <\/p>\n

Lulu restaurant, which opens onto the Hammer Museum\u2019s courtyard.<\/p>\n

(Wonho Frank Lee)<\/p>\n

Among Ryan\u2019s most consequential early steps has been putting a new leadership team in place. She hired Michael Wellen as chief curator and Regan Pro into a newly created position as chief of learning, engagement and research. They join Naoko Takahatake, director and chief curator of the museum\u2019s Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, in helping shape the Hammer\u2019s artistic and educational programs.<\/p>\n

Pro, who joined the museum in March after positions at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and the Seattle Art Museum, said Ryan\u2019s mandate is to elevate learning and public programs to the level of exhibitions. Ryan is thinking about \u201ca collective strategy and approach that centers [both] learning and engagement for all audiences,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Alongside its longstanding classroom-in-residence program, in which fourth- through sixth-grade classes spend a week at the museum, the Hammer piloted its classroom partnership program under Ryan. It provides yearlong professional development to Title I school teachers, who bring museum-developed arts curricula into their classrooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs art gets stripped out of the public school system, we\u2019re there supporting teachers,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a hundred students; it\u2019s now thousands of students that have access to these resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philbin oversaw a two-decade,$90-million renovation<\/a> by Michael Maltzan Architecture that increased gallery space by 60% and added an outdoor sculpture terrace. Ryan is now seeking to turn the museum and its courtyard into a functional \u201ctown square,\u201d with places for people to congregate. These include the Nook, a ground-floor room where visitors can make art, read or study. Her goal, she said, is to offer a \u201cradical welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The courtyard of the Hammer Museum doubles as the site for the annual gala.<\/p>\n

(Iwan Baan)<\/p>\n

Ryan\u2019s effort to make the Hammer more accessible inside its walls is paired with a broader commitment to supporting artists across Los Angeles. She has taken on oversight of the Hammer\u2019s participation in Mohn Art Collective, or MAC3, a collection of more than 400 works donated by philanthropists Jarl and Pamela Mohn and jointly owned and managed by the Hammer, LACMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art.<\/p>\n

Jarl Mohn recalled that, weeks into the job, Ryan joined her fellow directors at Frieze Los Angeles to scout work for the collection. After they selected a piece by established L.A. artist Edgar Arceneaux, Ryan urged the group to revisit MAC3\u2019s mandate to support a broad range of local artists. They also acquired a work by Shaniqwa Jarvis, a photographer with a two-decade career who was beginning to enter major museum collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cZo\u00eb raised her hand as the newbie, saying, \u2018Isn\u2019t this the mission? Isn\u2019t this what we\u2019re supposed to be doing?\u2019\u201d Mohn said. \u201cAnd it made an impression on me.\u201d
Mohn, a longtime underwriter of the museum\u2019s flagship Made in L.A. biennial, said Ryan is extending the program\u2019s impact by returning to participating artists for broader examinations of their work. Ryan calls the approach \u201cpulling threads\u201d from the Hammer\u2019s past. The Caland survey and next spring\u2019s Joey Terrill exhibition \u2014 artists featured in Made in L.A. in 2016 and 2023, respectively \u2014 are examples of what Mohn jokingly called \u201cline extensions\u201d of the biennial.<\/p>\n

\"An <\/p>\n

An installation at the Hammer Museum\u2019s Huguette Caland exhibition.<\/p>\n

(Jeff McLane)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an innovation of [Ryan\u2019s], which I think is brilliant, and a real sign of the creative thinking that she\u2019s bringing to the Hammer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mohn also pointed to Ryan\u2019s decision to pair Wellen, who recently worked at the Tate Modern, with MOCA curator Jos\u00e9 Luis Blondet for Made in L.A. 2027 \u2014 scheduled to open Oct. 10, 2027\u2014 as another sign of her collaborative approach. Bringing in a veteran curator from another local institution, Mohn said, demonstrated a commitment to \u201cgetting the best minds together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overseeing an endowment of about $150.3 million, Ryan is prioritizing annual support for free admission and programming while raising endowment funds for staff positions. She is also planning the Hammer\u2019s contribution to the LA28 Cultural Olympiad, the regional arts program accompanying the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.<\/p>\n

Further ahead, Ryan is among those envisioning an arts corridor stretching from the Hammer through the UCLA campus and a broader Westside cultural district connecting the Fowler Museum, Nimoy Theater, Getty Center and Skirball Cultural Center, as well as the Westwood Village and Bruin theaters. She said conversations have begun about creating \u2014 or formally naming \u2014 a Westside Arts District anchored by the Hammer.<\/p>\n

With a Metro D Line station planned nearby, Ryan expects the Hammer to become a point of entry to the neighborhood. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be the gateway for Westwood,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Palisades and Eaton fires erupted on Zo\u00eb Ryan\u2019s second day as director of the Hammer Museum at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":930221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[319554,9930,1896,76,354,355,319550,49,48,319552,356,9186,75,194880,319553,319551,2540,42056,28313,264984,5368,319549],"class_list":["post-930220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-ann-philbin","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-benton-museum","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chief-curator","tag-design","tag-director","tag-entertainment","tag-hammer-museum","tag-inventive-exhibition","tag-jarl-mohn","tag-learning","tag-position","tag-program","tag-staff-member","tag-work","tag-zoe-ryan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/930221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}