Melissa Chiu

Melissa Chiu is director of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the national museum of modern and contemporary art. Since her appointment in 2014, she has advocated for contemporary art through the Museum’s exhibitions, acquisitions, and public programs.While maintaining the Hirshhorn’s focus on twentieth- and twenty-first century art, the Museum has presented landmark exhibitions of work by some of the most important contemporary artists, notably Shirin Neshat, Robert Irwin, and Yayoi Kusama. Ms. Chiu’s current organizational focus is transforming the Hirshhorn into a twenty-first-century institution through establishing the Future Fund to support a number of new technology initiatives.