BROOKLYN MUSEUM APPOINTS THREE NEW CURATORS

This morning, the Brooklyn Museum announced three new curatorial appointments. Joan Cummins, a scholar of the art of India, has been named Lisa and Bernard Selz Curator of Asian Art; Patrick Amsellem, a specialist in twentieth-century and contemporary art, will become associate curator of photography; and Ladan Akbarnia, whose field is the art of Iran and Central Asia, has been appointed Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art. “Our outstanding collections of Asian and Islamic art and our strong photography holdings will benefit enormously from their expertise, as will all of our public programming, ” stated museum director Arnold L. Lehman. The appointments come after last summer’s controversial decision by Lehman to do away with traditional departments and instead form two curatorial teams, one for collections and one for exhibitions.