The former editor in chief of Art in America magazine Lindsay Pollock is joining New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art as its chief communications and content officer.
Pollock, who officially joins the museum on May 7, is the latest journalist to make the leap into the commercial and public-relations realms of the art world, following a string of writers in recent years who have decamped to various positions with galleries, art fairs, and industry PR.
Calling the museum “one of the most dynamic and vibrant art institutions in the US,” Pollock said in a statement that she is “sincerely honored to be part of the talented team helping to shape the Whitney’s next chapter.” She also noted that it “happens to have been founded by a visionary woman”—Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.
From 2011 to 2017, Pollock was editor-in-chief of Art in America, which is part of a stable of publications owned by the newsprint mogul and art collector Peter Brant. Pollock remained at the helm throughout the magazine’s 2015 merger with ARTnews magazine—a move that signaled broader shifts in the art media landscape at the time—just a year after ARTnews had been acquired by Polish publisher Sergey Skaterschikov. Pollock stepped down from Art in America in April 2017.
Prior to her position at Art in America, Pollock worked for a number of other publications, often specializing in the art market, including for Bloomberg News, the Art Newspaper, and the now-defunct New York Sun. She also authored a well-received biography of pioneering art dealer Edith Halpert, titled The Girl with the Gallery (Public Affairs 2006). Earlier in her career, she worked as marketing director for the Central Park Conservancy and marketing manager at Sotheby’s.
Pollock earned a B.A. in art history from Barnard College and a M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.