Photo by Cameron Wittig

Philippe Vergne, recently appointed director of the Dia Art Foundation

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The 34-year-old organization has hit a rough patch recently. In 2006 both its board chairman, Leonard Riggio, and its director, Michael Govan, departed, the latter going west to head up the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Govan was replaced by Jeffrey Weiss, who left in February after just nine months on the job.

Although Vergne had administrative duties in his former position, he is primarily known for his curatorial accomplishments, such as last year’s touring Kara Walker retrospective. He says he was attracted to Dia by the role it has historically played in helping artists realize challenging or large-scale projects, such as Walter de Maria’s Earth Room. “The Walker and Dia have a lot in common,” he explains, “in terms of the way people perceive them as artist-centric.”

At Dia, Vergne says, “there’s a rare and acute awareness of how an institution should function, and there’s a desire to take risks.” His highest priority will be to find it a new home in Manhattan. The foundation’s longtime space on West 22nd Street was shuttered in 2004, shortly after it relocated its permanent collection to its museum in Beacon, New York. (Two years ago the foundation had plans to move to a site in the Meatpacking District, in downtown Manhattan, but gave it up, and now the Whitney Museum of American Art is going to build a Renzo Piano–designed branch there.)

To find a new director, Dia’s board decided not to rely on a headhunter, as it had in its previous searches, says the current chairwoman, Nathalie de Gunzburg. “We really worked to pinpoint the candidate,” she explains. “[Given] Philippe’s knowledge of Dia and the collection, and his passion for art and artists, his knowledge in curating and in managing, we think he can lead Dia to another level.”

"Direct to Dia" originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2008 Table of Contents.