Bronx Museum director Klaudio Rodriguez is taking a new job as the head of the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg. A middle aged man with wavy dark hair and a beard, is seen in a gray suit, standing with his arms crossed in front two narrow floor to ceiling windows in what appears to be a museum gallery.
Bronx Museum director Klaudio Rodriguez is taking a new job as the head of the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg. Photo by Argenis Apolinario, courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg.

For the third time in seven years, the Bronx Museum in New York finds itself in search of a new director. After less than four years at the helm, Klaudio Rodriguez is departing for an executive director and chief executive post at Florida’s Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg.

The unexpected move comes amid an ambitious $33 million capital campaign and renovation project for the institution, which is set to be completed in 2026.

“It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with the staff and board of the Bronx Museum over the past seven years,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “I am leaving the museum in great hands and with a great team.”

The museum has been in its current location, a former synagogue, since 1982, previously expanding in 2006 with the construction of its north building, designed by Arquitectonica. The firm Marvel is heading up the new project, which will better integrate the existing buildings to create a museum campus with continuous gallery space.

A rendering of the expanded Bronx Museum with its new entrance and three-story lobby on Grand Concourse and 165th Street. Image courtesy of Marvel.

The project will also move the main entrance to a more visible location on the corner of Grand Concourse and 165th Street, with a soaring lobby space. During construction, only the north building is open to the public.

Rodriguez came on board at the institution in 2017. His first day, longtime Bronx Museum director Holly Block, who had personally recruited him for a deputy director role, announced that she was sick and stepping down. She died of breast cancer just two weeks later.

Block’s tenure was one of impressive growth for the organization, which eliminated admission fees in 2012, launched the AIM Biennial in 2011, and saw annual attendance grow from 25,000 to 100,000. Punching above its weight, the museum also sponsored the U.S. pavilion at the prestigious Venice Biennale in 2013, featuring Sarah Sze.

But there were also controversies, which saw two executive board members and four trustees resign their posts in 2016.

They were concerned about Block’s spending on two projects related to Cuba. There was a $2.5 million replica of an Anna Hyatt Hunting monument to José Martí in Central Park being sent to Havana, and a planned loan exchange with the El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. (Cuba ultimately pulled out of its end of the exhibition, but did install the statue in 2018.)

Installation view of “Bronx Calling: The Fifth Aim Biennial.” Photo by Argenis Apolinario. Image courtesy Bronx Museum.

After Block’s sudden passing, Rodriguez briefly served as interim director. In June 2018, the museum tapped Deborah Cullen-Morales, the director of Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, as its next leader. But a year and a half later, she was out, telling my colleague Brian Boucher that the gig had only ever been an 18-month contract.

Once again, Rodriguez took on the top job in an interim capacity in January 2020. He was officially named director that November, just ahead of the museum’s 50th anniversary year.

The expansion plan, announced in late 2021, suggested the museum’s new head had a grand vision for institution. Now, Rodriguez leaves with those plans still unrealized. Deputy director Shirley Solomon and chief advancement officer Yvonne Garcia will head operations until the museum names Rodriguez’s successor.

The move to St. Petersburg represents a return to Florida, where Rodriguez grew up. Before joining the Bronx Museum, he spent a decade as the chief curator of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami. He will start his new job in October.

“It is especially meaningful to return to the region where I was raised and began my career in arts and culture,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “I truly believe that the MFA is well-positioned to enrich lives through art, foster impactful dialogue, and create inclusive spaces for all.”

The St. Petersburg museum has had troubled times in recent years. Rodriguez’s predecessor, Anne-Marie Russell, spent only a year in the job before resigning last November. Russell had controversially fired senior curator Michael Bennett after provenance concerns arose about works in a high-profile exhibition of Greek antiquities. Three other senior staffers also stepped down in 2023.