In the six months that she has served as the director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Melissa Chiu has already left an indelible mark on the institution.

Since leaving her role as director of the Asia Society in New York and assuming her new position at the Hirshhorn on September 30, Chiu has rapidly succeeded on two fronts.

Dan Colen, Let’s Spend the Night Together (2011).
Photo: Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Under her leadership, the board of trustees has elected eight new members. The newest of Chiu’s board recruits, joining last February are Jakarta-based president and director of AKR Corporindo Haryanto Adikoesoemo; New York-based collector and philanthropist Jill Bernstein; Dubai and Montreal-based president and CEO of GardaWorld Security Stéphan Crétier; New York-based managing director of US Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management, Trinh D. Doan; and Jill Cooper Udall, who was a consultant on museum issues for the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets.

The first three, New York-based Janine W. Hill, Los Angeles-based Joleen Julis and Greenwich, Connecticut-based Harold Newman, joined the board in October.

Chung Sang-Hwa, Untitled 73-7 (1973).
Photo: Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

“In keeping with the museum’s increasingly international focus,” said Chiu in a statement, “we are adding trustees not only from the United States, but from Canada and Indonesia as well.”

Chiu, a renowned authority on modern and contemporary Asian art, has also supervised the acquisition of 11 important works of art by 10 artists for the Museum’s permanent collection: Chung Sang-Hwa, Dan Colen, Rainer Ganahl, Jane Irish, Dean Kessmann, Sze Tsung Leong, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Yoko Ono, Park Seobo and SUPERFLEX. Many of these artists are entering the museum’s collection for the first time.

SUPERFLEX, Flooded McDonald’s (2009).
Photo: Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Among the acquisitions are Ono’s video Sky TV for Washington (1966/2014), two paintings by Dan Colen from his “Trash” and “Miracle” series, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s interactive installation Voice Array (2011), and art collective SUPERFLEX’s video Flooded McDonald’s (2009).

Chiu has sought to tailor the Hirshhorn’s focus towards international modern and contemporary art. Her inaugural exhibition featured the work of Iranian video artist Shirin Neshat. “The art world has become transnational,” Chiu told the New York Times in an October interview.

Clearly, Chiu is swiftly positioning the Hirshhorn as a formidable contender among 21st-century museums.