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Alexandra Suda

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Alexandra Suda
Alexandra "Sasha" Suda in 2022
Born1981 (1981)
Ontario, Canada
EducationPrinceton University (BA)
Williams College (MA)
New York University (PhD)
Known forArt history
CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Alexandra Suda (born 1981) is a Canadian art historian who was formerly the director of the National Gallery of Canada.[1] In June 2022, she was appointed to be the director and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is among the largest art museums in the United States.[2]

Suda is often known as Sasha Suda.[3]

Early life and education

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Suda was born in 1981 in Toronto, Ontario,[a] to parents who were immigrants from Czechoslovakia.[5] She completed a BA at Princeton University, an MA at Williams College, before earning her PhD at The Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.[6] Suda's doctoral dissertation is entitled "The Making of Girona Martyrology and the Cult of Saints in Late Medieval Bohemia" and was published in 2016.[7]

Career

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Suda's career as a professional art historian started at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She had a variety of roles at the museum, all in the Medieval Department. These roles were in the time period 2003 to 2011.[5]

While at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Suda received an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship to continue her doctoral research.[8]

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In 2011, Suda became an assistant curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.[5] She later became the Curator of European Art at the gallery.[9]

According to the Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference, her Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures exhibition, held in Ontario, New York and Amsterdam, "received extensive positive press for its high level of scholarship which is driven by the public's curiosity about these wondrous works of art."[6]

During her time at the gallery, Suda re-worked the European art collection and its presentation to better engage broad audiences.[10]

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In April 2019, Suda was named director and CEO of the National Gallery of Canada.[1] At the time of her appointment at age 38, she was the youngest person to hold this post at the gallery in more than a century.[11]

As director and CEO, Suda was credited with developing a strategic plan for the National Gallery of Canada, expanding the organization's diversity and inclusion, and enhancing the general reputation of the gallery. These accomplishments occurred despite the additional difficulties resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.[11] The strategic plan for organizational change at the National Gallery of Canada was referred to by the term "ankosé", from the Ojibwe language meaning that everything is connected.[12]

Critics have argued that Suda was relatively inexperienced for the position at the National Gallery, and did not speak French as well as English. Some of her actions (and those of her interim successor, Angela Cassie) in support of the strategic plan and “decolonization”,[13] were described as being directed by "dogma".[14] Restructuring and significant staff dismissals were criticized as creating an unstable environment and losing key institutional knowledge from the institution.[15]

In 2020, Suda was part of a jury that chose Canadian artist Stan Douglas to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale annual exhibition in Italy.[16]

Philadelphia Museum of Art

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In June 2022, the Philadelphia Museum of Art announced that Suda would assume the role of director at the Museum in September of that year.[17] The title of the position is the George D. Widener Director and CEO.[18]

In September 2022, workers at that museum held a strike over wages and working conditions[19] which lasted 19 days.[20] The strike started within days of Suda's being officially installed in the directorship, and the labor dispute had been ongoing well before Suda's time at the museum.[21] She stayed publicly silent on the matter with a museum spokesperson saying she would not be part of the negotiations.[22] Later, Suda stated that the labor settlement "laid a solid foundation."[21]

In her previous position at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Suda had been a labor union member.[3]

During Suda's tenure at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the museum has created the Brind Center for African and African Diasporic Art, with its own curators, who are responsible for maintaining the collection and developing programing. The Brind Center is the museum's first African-oriented department, with an intent to appeal to a broad audience. At the time the Brind Center was established, Suda stated that its curators should work with curators across the various departments within the museum, rather than limiting their efforts to their own collections, to overcome organizational stovepiping.[23]

Selected publications

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External media
Media links for Alexandra (Sasha) Suda
Audio
audio icon 2023 Suda interview by novelist and journalist Alain Elkann
Video
video icon 2023 overview of the Philadelphia Museum of Art by Suda
  • Suda, Alexandra; Ellis, Lisa. "Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures". Art Gallery of Ontario, 2016.
  • Suda, Alexandra, Boehm, Barbara Drake. "Handpicked: Collecting Boxwood Carvings from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries." In: Scholten, Frits (ed), "Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries". Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2016.
  • "The Girona Martyrology: Belief in the guise of Violence and Beauty". Autopsia: Blut- und Augenzeugen, 2014

Notes

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  1. ^ Another source states that Suda was born in Orillia, Ontario.[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b Minister Rodriguez Announces Appointment of New Director of National Gallery of Canada Department of Canadian Heritage. Retrieved 13 February 2019
  2. ^ Pogrebin, Robin (7 June 2022). "Philadelphia Museum of Art Names a New Director". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  3. ^ a b Crimmins, Peter (10 June 2022). "Five Things You should Know about Philly Art Museum's Incoming Director". WHYY. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  4. ^ Robb, Peter. "New director of the National Gallery is AGO curator Alexandra Suda". artsfile.ca. Artsfile. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
  5. ^ a b c "Art and the Institution: Three Philadelphia Voices". thephiladelphiashow.com. The Philadelphia Show. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  6. ^ a b "Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference". Retrieved 12 December 2018
  7. ^ "Art History Dissertations and Abstracts from North American Institutions". openpublishing.psu.edu. Penn State University Libraries. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  8. ^ “Internships, Fellowships, and Professional Travel Grants.” Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 141, 2010, pp. 33–37. JSTOR. Accessed 27 Sept. 2023.
  9. ^ "Dr. Alexandra Suda". CODART. Retrieved 12 December 2018
  10. ^ "Philadelphia Museum of Art Appoints Sasha Suda as CEO". CityBiz. citybiz.co. 8 June 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
  11. ^ a b Saxberg, Lynn (8 June 2022). "Trailblazing Director and CEO, Sasha Suda leaving National Gallery after just 3 Years". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
  12. ^ "National Gallery of Canada Announce Foundational Change through Ankosé". art-critique.com. Art Critique. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  13. ^ Cohen, Andrew (29 June 2023). "National Gallery of Canada just can't quit anti-art 'decolonization' plan". National Post.
  14. ^ Cohen, Andrew. "Canada's National Gallery has become a woke national disgrace". nationalpost. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
  15. ^ Laucius, Joanne (14 October 2022). "National Gallery 'never met any of the basic employment equity obligations,' says Interim Director". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  16. ^ Alex Greenberger (January 15, 2020), Stan Douglas, Leading Video Artist with an Eye Toward the Marginalized, Will Represent Canada at 2021 Venice Biennale ARTnews.
  17. ^ Kinsella, Eileen (7 June 2022). "National Gallery of Ontario Director Sasha Suda Will Leave to Helm the Philadelphia Museum of Art". Artnet News. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  18. ^ "Philadelphia Museum of Art names Sasha Suda as new director and CEO". The Trentonian. 27 June 2022. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  19. ^ "Art Museum workers continue strike into second week". WHYY. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  20. ^ Velie, Elaine (24 October 2022). "Philadelphia Museum Strikers Open Up on "Tense" Return to Work".
  21. ^ a b Stevens, Matt (14 October 2022). "Philadelphia Museum of Art Reaches Tentative Deal to End Strike". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  22. ^ Crimmins, Peter (3 October 2022). "Art Museum workers continue strike into second week". WHYY PBS.
  23. ^ Crimmins, Peter (27 February 2023). "Philadelphia Museum of Art Creates a new Department for Black and African Art". The Philadelphia Tribune. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
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