Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa at Louvre Paris

Austrian Max Hollein new head of New York's Met

Photo Credit: Deutsche Welle/Städel Museum

A year-long search for the next director of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has come to an end; Vienna-born art historian and former head of prestigious museums in Frankfurt, Max Hollein, has been chosen.

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art announced Tuesday that it had named a new director. In August 2018, Max Hollein, originally from Austria, will take over the reins of the largest art museum in the US, with a collection of over 2 million artworks tracing 5,000 years of art history. Hollein currently serves as director and chief executive of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which comprises the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor. Prior to that, he was director and CEO of three of Germany's most prestigious art institutions, including the Städel Museum, the Schirn Kunsthalle and the Liebieghaus, all in Frankfurt. 

A gifted leader
The Met noted in a press statement that Hollein had been elected at a meeting of the Board of Trustees as he "has demonstrated exceptional skill at building collections, diversifying audiences, and broadening institutional development." During his tenure at Frankfurt's Städel, the museum had notably doubled its exhibition space. At the same time, Hollein oversaw the development of digital strategies and evidenced an uncanny ability at managing exhibitions and collections of artworks spanning centuries, even millennia.

"Max is a gifted leader and is exceptionally well qualified to serve as our next director," said Dan Weiss, the Met's president and CEO. "I am confident that ours will be a strong and fruitful partnership, and that Max will help advance the Met's role as a global leader for culture and the arts."

An appointment during difficult times
Hollein's appointment is the first in 60 years that did not come from within the museum's internal ranks. The 10th person to occupy the Met's top post, Hollein succeeds Thomas Campbell, a British tapestries expert, who had been in the role since 2009. He enters the position in a difficult era; the Met, which has some seven million visitors each year, has had to cut costs and curb hiring after running a $10 million deficit during the 2016-17 fiscal year. Most recently, the museum made headlines for its decision to charge an admission fee for visitors from outside New York state. Previously, the museum's entrance fee was a suggested donation only. ct/eg (AFP, kna) DW-Deutsche Welle

One-million-dollar coin stolen from Berlin museum

Photo Credit: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Mettelsiefen
Deutsche Welle

Through a spectacular heist, a precious and extremely heavy coin has been stolen from Berlin's Bode Museum. A unique coin was stolen from the Bode Museum in Berlin early Monday morning, at around 3:30 a.m., as stated in a tweet by Berlin's police:

The face value of the coin is one million dollars, but its market value is estimated at four million dollars. Called the "Big Maple Leaf," the piece weighs 100 kilograms (220 pounds). Issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, like all Canadian coins, it features the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. It has a diameter of 53 centimeters (21 inches) and is three centimeters thick. The piece has also entered the Guinness Book of Records for its unsurpassed purity of 999.99/1000 gold. On show at the Bode Museum since 2010, it is part of the Münzkabinett collection, Berlin's most important archive of coinage, which includes more than 540,000 objects altogether. The thieves are believed to have broken into the building located on Berlin's famous Museum Island by setting up a ladder from the adjacent tram tracks. The rail service was interrupted when the ladder was found. Investigators have not revealed how the burglars managed to avoid setting off alarms and leave the museum unnoticed while carrying the heavy piece. eg/kbm (dpa, AFP) DW