EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University announced today the eight-member jury who will make final recommendations in the selection of the architectural firm that will design the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum on campus. The jurors are: Eli Broad, Edwin Chan, Michael Govan, Richard Koshalek, Cecil Mackey, Edward Minskoff, Dolores Wharton and Kate Pew Wolters.
The finalists – five internationally known firms – will make their presentations to the jury on Wednesday, July 18, in the Pasant Theatre at the Wharton Center for the Performing Arts. The public is invited to observe the presentations. The jury will make recommendations to MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon for Board of Trustees approval. The presentation schedule will be announced later this week. No decision will be made or announced on July 18.
Construction of the museum, funded in part by a $26 million gift from the Broads, is expected to begin in the fall of 2008 and be completed by 2010.
The following are brief descriptions about each juror.
Eli Broad
Eli Broad is a renowned business leader who built two Fortune 500 companies over a five-decade career. He is the founder of Sun America Inc. and KC Home (formerly Kaufman and Broad Home Corp.). Today, Broad and his wife, Edythe, for whom the new art museum is named, are devoted to philanthropy as founders of The Broad Foundations, which are focused on advancing entrepreneurship for the public good in education, science and the arts. In 1991, the Broads endowed The Eli Broad College of Business and The Eli Broad Graduate School of Management at MSU, from which Broad graduated with honors in 1954.
Edwin Chan
Edwin Chan is an architect with Gehry Partners, LLP, in Los Angeles, one of the most well-known and well-respected architectural firms in the world. Chan joined the firm in the 1980s after graduation from Harvard University and now he collaborates with Frank Gehry to provide design leadership for various projects including numerous museum commissions. Chan was the project designer for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain; the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota; the Guggenheim Museum Lower Manhattan Project, N.Y.; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. He was a project team member for Vitra International Furniture Manufacturing Facility and Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany, and other commissions before becoming a partner in the firm.
Michael Govan
Michael Govan is chief executive officer and Wallis Annenberg director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He assumed the LACMA position in 2006 after his 12-year tenure as president and director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York. Under his leadership, Dia significantly increased its exhibitions, interdisciplinary programs, and scholarly and critical publications. Govan also has served as deputy director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In that role, his work involved museums in New York, Venice and Bilbao. He was co-curator of the acclaimed touring exhibition “Dan Flavin: a Retrospective” organized by the Dia in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Richard Koshalek
Richard Koshalek is president of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. Koshalek is also the former director, deputy director and chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (LAMOCA). At LAMOCA, he worked with the architect Frank Gehry on the design and construction of the Geffen Contemporary and with the architect Arata Isozaki on the museum’s permanent building. He provided leadership in building the permanent collection, developed an extensive, diverse exhibition and performing arts program and instituted the award-winning education program, Contemporary Art Start. He organized presentation of new works by Richard Serra for the Geffen Contemporary, and a comprehensive survey of the history of 20th-century architecture, titled “End of the Century,” which opened in Tokyo and traveled internationally. He has also had a distinguished career in the visual arts, serving as director of the Hudson River Museum; director of the Fort Worth Art Museum; assistant director of the Visual Arts Program, National Endowment for the Arts; and curator of the Walker Art Center.
M. Cecil Mackey
M. Cecil Mackey is a professor of economics at MSU who combines innovative pedagogy with intellectual rigor and as a strong leader as MSU’s 16th president from 1979 to 1985. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in economics from the University of Alabama and a doctorate from the University of Illinois where he focused on economic theory, the history of economic thought, and the relationship of government to business and finance in economics. He also holds a Bachelor of Laws degree and studied graduate law at Harvard University. Mackey was director of the Office of Policy and Development for the Federal Aviation Agency, director of the Office of Transportation Policy for the U.S. Department of Commerce, and assistant secretary for Policy and Development for the U.S. Department of Transportation. He taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy, University of Alabama, University of Maryland and Florida State University. He also served as president of the University of South Florida and Texas Tech University.
Edward J. Minskoff
Edward Minskoff is president of the highly successful Edward J. Minskoff Equities Inc. in New York City. Minskoff Equities develops commercial real estate in Manhattan, the United States and Canada. The firm has developed or acquired over 5 million square feet of office space and 1 million square feet of mixed-use residential and retail space. Formerly, Minskoff was chief executive officer of Olympia and York Equities. Edward and Julie (Chai) Minskoff, his spouse, are serious collectors of 20th- and 21st-century art in various two- and three-dimensional media and have contributed $2 million dollars toward the Broad Art Museum. In 1962, Minskoff earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from MSU and The Eli Broad College of Business. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of California.
Dolores D. Wharton
Dolores D. Wharton is a retired director of the Phillips Petroleum Co. She founded and served as chairperson and corporate director of the Fund for Corporation Initiatives Inc. Wharton’s board memberships include National Public Radio, Michigan Bell, New York Telephone and Michigan National Bank. Her board directorships include Key Bank, Kellogg Co. and Gannett Co. Inc. She served as a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and as director of Albany Institute of History and Art. Other trusteeships include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Asia Society and Albany Law School. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Chicago State University and is the author of “Contemporary Artists of Malaysia: A Biographic Survey.” MSU’s Clifton and Dolores Wharton Center for Performing Arts was named for Dolores and her husband, Clifton, who served as MSU’s 14th president, to honor their vital support for campus cultural programming.
Kate Pew Wolters
Kate Pew Wolters is board chairperson of the Steelcase Foundation in Grand Rapids, which makes grants to non-profit organizations, projects and programs in the communities where Steelcase employees live and work. The foundation focuses on human service, health, education, community development, the arts and the environment – giving particular concern to people who are disadvantaged, disabled or young and elderly as they try to improve their lives. In 2006, the foundation had made nearly $7.3 million in grants and matching gifts and held assets of more than $119 million. President Bill Clinton appointed Wolters to the National Council on Disability on which she served for nine years. Wolters now serves on boards and foundations including the MSU Foundation, Grand Valley State University and the Grand Rapids Art Museum Foundation. With her late husband, she established the Kate and Richard Wolters Foundation to expand humanitarian service. Wolters earned a Master of Social Work at MSU.
For more information, visit the Web at http://special.newsroom.msu.edu/artmuseum.
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