Michael Taylor
Dr. Michael R. Taylor is the Artistic Director and Chief Curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). His exhibitions include Giorgio de Chirico and the Myth of Ariadne (2003); Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective (2009); Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés (2009); and, most recently, Man Ray: The Paris Years (2021). Dr. Taylor served as Curator of Modern Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1997 to 2011, before being appointed as Director of Dartmouth College’s Hood Museum of Art. Since 2015 he has worked at VMFA, where he is currently working on a major expansion project scheduled to open in 2029.
Ann Temkin’s scintillating installation at MoMA pointedly refuses to present a new theoretical framework for understanding Duchamp’s work, preferring instead to leave the works on display free from interpretation in line with the artist’s belief in the interactive role of the viewer in “completing” the work of art.
