Displaying items by tag: franklin sirmans

In early October, Franklin Sirmans has just eight days left to work through his Los Angeles bucket list: He’s planning one more round of golf, some tennis with a gallerist friend plus at least one Mets versus Dodgers baseball game. He’ll also make a few final pilgrimages to his favorite restaurants. “I’m not going to miss the chance to go to my sake house, which has an amazing DJ on Saturday nights,” he says. While he’s here, Sirmans has co-opted the bar of the Beverly Wilshire as his ad hoc office.

The Pérez Art Museum has picked Franklin Sirmans as its next director. He brings to the table fund-raising success, experience in four major U.S. markets (Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, at MoMA PS1 and the Brooklyn Museum, and Houston), a curatorial focus on contemporary art—and even art journalism experience as the former U.S. editor of Flash Art and Editor-in-Chief of ArtAsiaPacific.

He may need that varied bag of tricks to draw focus to the Pérez Museum (in any month but December, when Art Basel Miami Beach descends on the city), to boost its profile and attendance within the crazily museum-rich town and to raise both operating funds and its good will with the locals.