149. Melissa Chiu

Melissa Chiu is Director of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary art. Since her appointment in 2014, she has advocated for contemporary art through the Museum’s exhibitions, acquisitions, and public programs, with landmark exhibitions of work by some of today’s most important artists. A native of Australia, Chiu earned her bachelor’s degree in art history and criticism from the University of Western Sydney in 1992 and her master’s degree in arts administration in 1994 from the University of New South Wales. She completed her Ph.D. with a dissertation on contemporary Chinese art at the University of Western Sydney in 2005. Chiu has authored and edited several books and catalogues on contemporary art, and has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the Museum of Modern Art, and other universities and museums.
She and Zuckerman discuss radical accessibility, running our nation’s Museum of modern and contemporary art, the difference between TV and museums, the humility of motherhood, and learning from artists.