Press Releases & Statements

The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) will hold its 2019 annual meeting in Richmond, Virginia, where they were invited by two hosting institutions: the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) and the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). This is AAMD’s first all-member meeting since it revised its schedule to move to one large, annual meeting, supported by a series of two or more smaller meetings focused around specific topics of interest. The meeting will be held from January 27-29, 2019.

In addition to the Association’s schedule of committee meetings, the members will hear from a number of different speakers, including:

• An opening keynote by Bryan Stevenson, the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, on the topic of diversity, inclusion, and the role of art museums in addressing questions of racial and social justice;

• Christy Coleman, the CEO of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, will present on the approach taken by the City of Richmond to its many public monuments to leaders of the Confederacy and what museums can learn from this;

• A talk by Aaron Chatterji, Associate Professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, on the changing role of CEOs into values-based models of leadership;

• Richard Reeves, senior fellow in Economic Studies, Director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative, and Co-Director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution, will speak about his research on the middle class, and specifically around income inequality and social mobility;

• And a closing keynote by Ed Grier, Dean of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business, on VCU’s ambitious strategic plan, which focuses on driving the future of business through the power of creativity.

The 2019 Annual Meeting will have an active social media presence, with attendees encouraged to live-Tweet and Instagram their experiences with the hashtag #AAMDRichmond. The full schedule for the meeting is available here.

About AAMD

The Association of Art Museum Directors advances the profession by cultivating leadership capabilities of directors, advocating for the field, and fostering excellence in art museums. An agile, issues-driven organization, AAMD fosters engagement, leadership, and shared learning. Further information about AAMD’s professional practice guidelines and position papers is available at aamd.org.