The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) announced today that Director Paul Ha has been selected as the new Director of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) List Center for the Visual Arts in Cambridge, MA. Ha is expected to begin his new position on December 1, 2011.

“What an honor it is for Paul to have been chosen to lead the List Center at MIT,” said David Obedin, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Board Chairman. “For the past nine years, Paul has taken the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis to a new level of excellence and international prominence. We will miss his vision and leadership, but wish him well in this exciting new opportunity.”

Ha arrived in St. Louis in 2002 to oversee the construction and opening in September 2003 of the organization’s new facility designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture. Ha quickly positioned CAM as a leader in the field of contemporary art, garnering national and international recognition for its exhibitions. He also initiated programs to appeal to broader audiences in the St. Louis community. His major accomplishments for CAM include raising an aggregate of over $40 million and initiating and creating a $5 million endowment, the institution’s first. During Ha’s tenure, a number of artists received their first major museum exhibition at CAM including Laylah Ali, Lutz Bacher, Yun-Fei Ji, David Noonan, Alexander Ross, Aida Ruilova, Gedi Sibony, and Carey Young. Other artists exhibited include Polly Apfelbaum, Richard Artschwager, Slater Bradley, Jim Hodges, Maya Lin, Yoshitomo Nara, William Pope. L, and Cindy Sherman among others. Under Ha’s leadership, CAM produced 92 exhibitions and brought 223 artists to St. Louis since opening its doors in 2003.

“It was an incredible privilege to be the inaugural Director of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis,” said Ha. “I am thankful to those who brought me here and introduced me to a terrific city, and I am grateful to the tremendous staff members who helped build this institution. I am also thankful to the active board I was fortunate to have the support of, and of course all the extraordinary artists I was privileged to exhibit and support. I leave this organization knowing that I am leaving an institution that is fiscally sound, staffed by incredibly talented and dedicated individuals, and has tremendous leadership from committed board members. CAM is respected and loved by the community. My family and I are thankful to the St. Louis community and to those who reached out and welcomed us. We have made lifelong friends here.”

“Having been involved from the beginning with the predecessor institutions of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, I can say how rewarding it has been to watch the organization’s development over the last nine years under Paul’s leadership,” said Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Founder of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. “He has brought a broad spectrum of contemporary art to St. Louis and an increasingly widely involved community. It has been a pleasure for the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis to share a courtyard and many interests and programs.”
The List Center for the Visual Arts is known internationally and nationally for its cutting edge exhibitions and its oversight of MIT’s world-class public art collection. “What excites me about the List is that the arts at MIT are rooted in experimentation, and the List excels at that mandate,” said Ha. “My goal is to try to build on the List’s strong reputation in the field while also expanding its role in the lives of students and the greater MIT community. Just as the MIT Museum explores the foundations and frontiers of science and technology, the List Center for the Visual Arts explores the foundations and frontiers of the visual arts, being a laboratory for forward thinking and experimentation for the visual art world.”

“In Paul, the List is gaining a well respected and proven arts leader that has earned the admiration of his staff, the communities in which he has lived and worked, as well as the international art community,” said Philip S. Khoury, Associate Provost and Ford International Professor of History who oversees the List Center for the Visual Arts. “We are excited that he is joining MIT and look forward to collaborating on ways we can further solidify the List’s standing among students, faculty, visitors, and the international arts community.”

A search committee has been formed to name Ha’s replacement. Specific plans for the transition will be announced in the coming weeks.