Following the retirement of Detroit Institute of Arts director, president, and CEO Graham Beal in June, the museum announced a successor in Salvador Salort-Pons in a press release on Wednesday.
Salort-Pons has worked at the DIA since 2011, where he has served as director of the European Art Department and director of collection strategies and information. Previously, he served as the senior curator at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, assistant professor at the University of Madrid, and exhibition curator at the Memmo Foundation in Rome.
“After all these years working at the DIA, I feel deeply connected to Detroit especially through the role the museum has played as part of the city’s extraordinary history," Salort-Pons says in the release. "I look forward to working with our staff, our patrons, our partners in the three-county art authorities and throughout Michigan. I truly believe our greatest years lie ahead of us.”
Salort-Pons says he will build on the DIA's unique "visitor-centered" approach made famous by Beal, in which exhibitions are arranged in broad themes meant to appeal to a wide range of audiences as opposed to the art historian-centered approach of many other museums.
According to the release, the decision was made at the conclusion of a nine-month international search process.
Salort-Pons' assumes his new roles on October 15, 2015. The Madrid native currently lives in Bloomfield Hills with his wife and two children, though according to the release he and his family plan to move to Detroit.
Speaking of art, check our Fall Arts Guide — on newsstands today — for more new developments on Detroit's art scene this season.
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