Heidi Zuckerman to Exit as CEO of Orange County Museum of Art

Heidi Zuckerman to Exit as CEO of Orange County Museum of Art

Heidi Zuckerman, whosince Feburary 2021has served as the director and chief executive officer of theOrange County Museum of Art(OCMA) in Costa Mesa, California, isset to leavethe institution in December. TheOrange County Registerreports that her departure is coincident with the end of her contract. Zuckerman in a statement said that she planned to focus on her media group, HZ Inc., and on her biweekly podcast,About Art.She will aid the museum in its search for her successor.

Since arriving at OCMA, Zuckerman has spearheaded the completion of the museum’s new $93 million, 53,000-square-foot Costa Mesa home,the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, to which it moved in 2022 from Newport Beach. She oversaw the acquisition of more than a hundred works of art, including those by Andrea Bowers, Joan Brown, and Derek Fordjour, and shepherded exhibitions including surveys of Fred Eversley and Yves Saint Laurent. Under her leadership, attendance increased twelvefold, with some half a million visitors walking in the doors within the two years since it reopened. As well, the museum secured funding that would allow it to offer free admission to all visitors for ten years. Zuckerman had earlier served as director and CEO of the Aspen Art Museum, from 2005 to 2019, and held prior curatorial roles at California’s Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the Jewish Museum in New York.

Speaking with the Register, Zuckerman affirmed her belief that art should be available to all, casting access to it as an essential human right rather than a privilege. “That’s why having free admission here at the museum was really key for me,” she told the publication. “I hope the museum stays free forever. That would be a dream.”