NEW YORK—Nan Rosenthal, senior consultant for modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, retired on July 1, the museum announced today. Rosenthal served in the position for 15 years, curating such exhibitions as this year's "Jasper Johns: Gray" and installing numerous single-artist exhibits on the roof, including a 2005 show of Sol LeWitt. Before joining the Met, she was curator of 20th-century art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Rosenthal will be replaced by Marla Prather, who served most recently as the curator for American Art at London's Tate Modern from 2005–07. Prather worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. prior to joining the Tate. She will assume the position of senior consultant at the Met in fall 2008.

CHICAGO—The School of the Art Institute of Chicago has announced that Wellinger Reiter will be its new president, assuming the position on August 25. Reiter moves to Chicago from Arizona State University, where he has has worked as the dean of the College of Design and a professor of architecture for the last five years. He also helped lead a major expansion of the school's Phoenix campus. Before that, he served as an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A trained architect, Reiter has worked on urban design projects, public art, and museum installations. He succeeds Tony Jones, who, after leading the school for 18 years, with a five year interruption in the 1990s, will become chancellor for a year and then retire.

BARCELONA—Friedrich Meschede has been appointed the new director of exhibitions at the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Artforum reports by way of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Meschede is currently the head of the department of visual arts at the Berliner Künstlerprogramm, an artist in residence program at DAAD Berlin — the German Academic Exchange Service. His work there has involved curating shows and projects with the artists in residence in collaboration with other Berlin contemporary art institutions.

NEW YORK—Parsons The New School for Design has announced the appointment of Coco Fusco as the new chair of fine arts. Fusco has been a member of the faculty at Columbia University since 2001 and previously served as associate professor at Tyler School of Art. She is also a multi-media artist and has shown in venues worldwide, including the Whitney Biennial, London’s Institute of Contemporary Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Smithsonian Institution. Fusco succeeds Don Porcaro, who served as chair since 2003. 

TAMPA, Fla.—Ken Rollins, director of the Tampa Museum of Art, is stepping down, according to the Tampa Tribune. Rollins was hired in July 2005 as executive director, with the primary purpose of building a new museum. His two-year contract was extended for a third year, as he helped museum board members and city officials resolve a dispute over the museum's new location. Now that construction is underway at the Curtis Hixon Park site — ground was broken in April — Rollins is retiring and returning to his studio in Mexico. The museum board has begun a search for a new director and hopes to fill the position by the end of the year.

LONDON—Sotheby's Institute of Art has announced that Dr. Jos Hackforth-Jones will direct its London institute beginning in September 2008. Hackforth-Jones currently serves as the president and provost of Richmond The American International University in London. She was appointed president of Richmond in 2007 and provost in 2003, prior to which she worked for two years as the university's dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. She has written numerous art historical studies, organized colloquia and conferences, and acted as the lead curator of the 2007 "Between Worlds, Voyagers to Britain 1700–1850" exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery.

NEW YORK—Haunch of Venison has announced its international representation of artist Adam Pendleton. The artist, who creates conceptual, multi-disciplinary art that "works to create a re-historicized present," will have solo exhibitions at HoV Berlin in January 2009 and HoV New York in fall 2010. He will also give three performances at Manifesta 7 over the duration of the biennial. Pendleton's work was included in recent group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He also had a recent solo show at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art.

OTTAWA—David Franklin, the deputy director and chief curator of the National Gallery of Canada, has gone on indefinite leave. An e-mail from gallery director Pierre Théberge informed the gallery's staff of the departure, without providing a reason or return date, and according to the Globe and Mail, many staff members do not expect Franklin to return. He was organizing the institution's main summer 2009 exhibition of Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, as well as a large Caravaggio exhibit planned for 2011 or 2012. Mayo Graham, director of outreach and international relations at the gallery for the past 10 years, will temporarily replace Franklin in his absence.

LOS ANGELES—Clara Kim has been appointed gallery director and curator of the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT). Kim has served as the REDCAT's acting gallery director and curator since the July 2007 departure of Eungie Joo, the organization's founding director, and first joined the institution at its inception in 2003 as associate curator. Before that, she worked as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the Walker Art Center. Kim is currently working on upcoming projects with Berlin–based artist John Bock, Tokyo–based architecture studio Atelier Bow-Wow, and Lebanese/New York artist Walid Raad, among others.

Farewells
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—Sherman E. Lee, former director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, died on July 9 at the age of 90, the Associated Press reports. Lee joined the Cleveland Musuem in 1952 as curator of Oriental art and was appointed director in 1958. He served as director for 25 years, during which time he expanded the museum's Asian art and Old Master collections. He worked previously at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Seattle Art Museum. He also taught art history at Case University and the University of North Carolina.

SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco–based, Beat-era artist Bruce Conner died on July 7 at the age of 74. Connor moved to San Francisco in 1957 and became a part of the Beat community, creating assemblages of found materials and household objects. He gained art-world and independent film attention for his works A Movie and Crossroads, both avant-garde mash-up films of footage from B-movies and newsreels. He was included in the 1997 Whitney Biennial, was the subject of a 1999–2000 touring survey, and is featured in the current Carnegie International. Connor falsely announced his own death twice, once sending an obituary to a national art magazine and later when writing a self-description for the encyclopedia Who Was Who in America.