Category: Museum Director
Nationality: American
Last Year: 3 (with Associate Director Kathy Halbreich as the entry)

As The New York Times critic Holland Cotter has pointed out, in periods of market excess, museums appear to have an excruciatingly slow time-lag. By the time art makes its way into museums, it has already been internationally preapproved, so to speak, by commercial galleries, fairs, sales. Not so now, with many New York galleries trotting out shows so safe they might as well be exhibited in padded cells. MoMA’s contemporary exhibitions take on extra significance in such times, and this is exactly the kind of thing we’re expecting from Greater New York 2010, the next edition of an exhibition organised by P.S.1 and MoMA, and held every five years that surveys artists living and working in New York. With artists increasingly going their own way, and surviving the brave new world without the big sale, 2010, curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Connie Butler and Neville Wakefield, is looking more exciting than it frankly should. Lowry was revealed as one of the biggest earners in the US nonprofit arts sector last year (this after taking a voluntary 10 percent cut in his salary), but with the help of Kathy Halbreich (who in terms of the artworld is perhaps the real figurehead of New York’s premier institution and who appeared in Lowry’s stead in last year’s version of this list, in acknowledgement of her key role in the rebuilding of MoMA), he’s steering the MoMA ship in a positive direction: the exhibitions programme has benefited from an increased emphasis on performance, including a major Pipilotti Rist installation and performances from Yvonne Rainer, Roman Ondák and Mark Leckey, alongside the knockout shows we have come to expect, with Marina Abramović and Gabriel Orozco coming next year. Throw in their recent windfall, a surprise $10 million left in a donor’s will, and MoMA’s future, on the whole, is looking rosier than it should.