Thomas J. Lax, newly appointed associate curator in the department of media and performance art, at the Museum of Modern Art.
Photo: Paul Mpagi Sepuya.

New York’s Museum of Modern Art has appointed Thomas J. Lax as associate curator in the department of media and performance art. Lax has previously served in the same capacity at the Studio Museum in Harlem for seven years.

The Tisch School of the Arts at New York University is promoting Allyson Green from associate dean to dean, reports the New York Times. Green, who joined the university two years ago and also teaches in the department of art and public policy, will replace Mary Schmidt Campbell, who announced in December that she would retire at the end of this academic year following almost 23 years in the role.

The 10th president of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh (which includes the Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Science Center, and the Andy Warhol Museum) will be Jo Ellen Parker, shares Trib Live. The first woman president in the institution’s nearly 120 years of existence, Parker is currently the president of Virginia’s all-female Sweet Briar College. Current president David Hillenbrand, who returned to his post last year after his first replacement, John Wetenhall, left with less than two years under his belt, is retiring.

The Menil Collection in Houston, has a new curator of collections in Paul R. Davis, who comes to the museum from Wits Art Museum‘s Center for the Creative Arts of Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, reports Artforum.

Anita Ellis will retire from the Cincinnati Art Museum at the end of the month, reports Artdaily. She has worked at the museum of 40 years, most recently as the deputy director of curatorial affairs.

Rebecca Davies, new chief executive of LAPADA, the Association of Art & Antiques Dealers.

Rebecca Davies, the founding managing director of London contemporary art gallery Blain|Southern, joins LAPADA, the UK’s Association of Art & Antiques Dealers, as the company’s chief executive, as reported by Artdaily.

London gallery Marlborough Fine Art has hired Alexander Platon, veteran of Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art department, according to a report from the Art Newspaper.

Most recently the head of collections and exhibitions at London’s Henry Moore Foundation, Anita Feldman is returning to her native San Diego as the deputy director of curatorial affairs at the San Diego Museum of Art, reports Art Daily. In her new post, Feldman will be responsible for managing the museum’s curatorial team, permanent collection, exhibitions, acquisitions, and research.

Frederick Janka, associate director of New York’s SculptureCenter, has been named director of development at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, as reported by Artforum.

As of August 19, Stephanie Smith, of the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum, will join the Art Gallery of Ontario as the institution’s chief curator, according to an item from Artforum.

Sam Stourdzé, new director of the annual French photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles. Photo: LUTZ/VU, via Le Figaro.

Annual French photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles has named Sam Stourdzé as director in response to François Hébel’s planned retirement at the end of this year’s edition (see artnet News’s report). Stourdzé has previously served as director at Paris’s Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland.

North Carolina art center Greenhill has hired Lynn Sanders-Bustle, the former coordinator of the art education program at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, as its new director of programs, helping to bridge the gap between the institution’s exhibition program and family and children’s education program, ArtQuest, reports Artdaily.

The University of Colorado at Boulder has hired a new director and chief curator for its CU Art Museum, replacing interim director, Stephen Martonis, the museum’s exhibitions manager, as reported by Artdaily. A veteran curator, Sandra Q. Firmin comes to this leadership role having organized some 30 exhibitions during her 10 years with the UB Art Gallery at the University of Buffalo SUNY.

According to a press release shared by the Lawrence History Center in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the neighboring Essex Art Center (EAC) has hired John Budzyna as executive director. Budzyna, who succeeds EAC co-founder Leslie Costello (stepping down after 20 years on the job), held the same position at the Arlington Center for the Arts in Arlington, Massachusetts.

As reported by the Zanesville Times Recorder, the Zanesville Museum of Art, Ohio, has poached ceramic artist Laine Snyder from her post as assistant curator of European and American art at the Dayton Art Institute to serve as its executive director.

This year’s Mellon Curators-at-Large Program scholars at the Indianapolis Museum of Art are Christian Feest, a specialist in Native American art, and Constantine Petridis, whose concentration is in African art.