The former apprentice and intern at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, as well as executive director and chief curator of the Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art at Florida Southern College, has also served as an art history professor. In addition, he worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Brooklyn Museum.
The historic building at 141 Meeting St., built in 1878 by Charleston architect E.B. White, is now owned by the neighboring Gibbes Museum of Art (left).
File/Robert Behre/Staff
He has experience in fundraising, expanding and curating the Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art, where he helped raise $18 million over a three-year period. He’s excited to be doing something similar in Charleston, where he moved with his husband, 2-year-old son and dog about four months ago.
“This team is beyond intrepid here. There’s so much passion in everything they work on,” he said of his 25 full-time coworkers, who will be moving into the museum soon. The former education center on the first floor in the main building will be their new offices. Currently, they lease space across the street.
The expansion next door is set to deliver a 30 percent increase in exhibition space, enhanced access to the museum’s collection of more than 10,000 objects, innovative multi-use space, and a new and improved education center.
The entire downstairs floor will be converted into the education center. School groups will be escorted in through the front entrance of 141 Meeting St., where they will be met with classrooms, state-of-the-art technology and access to the galleries upstairs, said Rich. They’ll have privacy in this first floor space, which will be blocked off to the public and require keycard access.
A rendering depicts what the new expansion of the Gibbes Museum of Art will look like from the outside.
The Gibbes Museum of Art/Provided
Guests of the museum will then be able to access the two new upstairs galleries — three if you count one that will be set up in the connecting bridge — by entering the museum as usual and crossing over on the second floor.
The new space can also be rented out for private events, as well as used for lectures and art talks, board meetings, and jazz and chamber music pop-ups. There will be screens and projectors hidden in the ceiling that can drop down when needed.