The blooloop 50 museum influencer list 2021

In July 2021, Ngaire Blankenberg took on the role of director at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C.

In her 30+ year career, Blankenberg has been as a storyteller (first as a television producer and director and then as a museum interpretive planner) and a strategic cultural consultant, working with television, museum consulting and exhibition design companies. She has worked with 55 museum and cultural projects in 35 cities and towns on 5 continents.

She was with museum and culture consulting company Lord Cultural Resources for 12 years, where she was Director, Europe for the last five. She was also Head of Content and Planning at leading Dutch museum design firm Kossmanndejong.

“The National Museum of African Art embodies the Smithsonian’s mission to foster understanding, inspire dialogue and bring people together irrespective of language, culture or border,” said Lonnie Bunch, the Secretary of the Smithsonian, on her appointment.

“Ngaire’s leadership and experience will be invaluable in using the museum’s unparalleled collections and scholarship of African Art to further our reach, diversify our audiences and have a more profound impact on the nation and world.”

“Museums are institutions that carry a lot of systemic baggage from their colonial origins, but they are vital public spaces to reconsider how we connect and contend with one another and the planet, and where we can redefine, heal and reconcile,” Blankenberg added.

“The National Museum of African Art sits physically in a city with one of the biggest populations of African peoples in the U.S. Digitally it reaches far into the diaspora. I am so grateful for the trust being placed in me to continue to care for, build, interpret and share NMAfA’s fantastic collection, particularly in this new era of U.S.-African relations.”

Since the publication of this list, Blankenberg has left the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. She works as an independent consultant and founded the Institute for Creative Repair in 2023.

Laurence des Cars stepped into this role in September 2021, making her the first female president of the Louvre in the Paris museum’s 228-year history.

Des Cars is an art historian and curator, who previously worked as president of the Musée d’Orsay and L’Orangerie in Paris, and also oversaw the development of the Louvre Abu Dhabi between 2007 and 2014. In 2021 she took over from Jean-Luc Martinez as president of the Louvre.

In her role at the world’s most popular museum, Des Cars says her goal is to foster a “dialogue between ancient art and the contemporary world” as well as to widen the appeal of the museum, particularly for younger generations. Des Cars will also review the Louvre’s opening hours to offer a more accessible museum:

“I think the Louvre has a lot to say to young people, too, who will be at the centre of my concerns as president of the Louvre,” she said. “We have to be open a little later in the day if we want young working people to come.”

Speaking about her appointment at the museum, she said: “I am deeply honoured by the trust placed in me by the President of the French Republic and the Minister of Culture in appointing me as head of this tremendous museum. My ambition is to place the Louvre at the core of topical debates, and for it to foster reflection on all issues within society. Through its 'longue durée approach', the Louvre gives relevance to the present, it is wholeheartedly contemporary and can therefore speak volumes to today’s youth.

“The recent crisis has had a particularly destabilising impact and has forced us to consider economic balances and to rethink – despite the constraints – the museum visit in terms of an exceptional experience.”

Des Cars studied art history at Paris-Sorbonne University and took her first position as curator at the Musée d'Orsay in 1994.

Piotr Cywiński is a professional historian and the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński started his role at the Auschwitz Museum at the relatively young age of 34 in 2006, making him just the fourth director of the Auschwitz Memorial since the war.

Both a museum and a memorial, The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, Poland is on the site of two parts of the former concentration and extermination camp. 2020 marked the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Attendance in 2019 at the museum broke records, with around 2.3 million people visiting the site of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. This was an increase of almost a quarter of a million over the previous year.

About the vital role of the museum, Cywiński has said, "Irrespective of whether it is realised within a 3-4 hour visit, or in the course of an in-depth, multi-day study or seminar visit, our moral obligation, the raison d’etre of this place, is to warn man of himself.”

In 2019, German chancellor Angela Merkel visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum for the first time. She donated €60 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation for Germany. This was in addition to the €60m donated by Germany when the fund launched 10 years ago.

Cywiński graduated in 1993 from the University of Humanities in Strasbourg as a Mediaeval historian and from the Catholic University of Lublin in 1995, obtaining his PhD from the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2001.

Larry Dubinski is the 17th president and chief executive officer of The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, a leading science centre that was founded in 1824

Dubinski’s tenure with The Franklin Institute began in 1996.In 2000, he left to work at the global law firm Morgan Lewis, returned to The Franklin Institute in 2004 as vice president of external affairs and general counsel, held several positions including executive vice president and chief operating officer, and assumed his current role in 2014.

In October 2021, he concluded two years of service as chair of the Association of Science and Technology Center’s (ASTC) Board of Directors, having served on the board since 2015. At the onset of the pandemic, he led ASTC in establishing new platforms to help science centres and science museums throughout North America, and around the world, connect with one another during the crisis.

During his time at The Franklin Institute, he has led two major capital campaigns totalling $120 million: Turning the Key (2003) and Inspire Science (2012), resulting in the construction and completion of the Nicholas and Athena Karabots Pavilion in 2014, a 53,000 square-foot, $41 million expansion.

He has helped the science centre to raise its international profile and worked to introduce new experiences like escape rooms, as well as new technologies such as virtual and augmented reality.

Harry Potter: The Exhibition, the most comprehensive touring exhibition on the Wizarding World yet, started its global tour at The Franklin Institute in 2022. This takes guests behind the scenes of the beloved films and stories, including Fantastic BeastsandHarry Potter and the Cursed Child.

“The Wizarding World is a sweeping phenomenon that crosses generations and delivers astonishing global appeal,” said Dubinski, speaking about the announcement. “We are thrilled that Harry Potter: The Exhibition will make its world tour debut in 2022 at The Franklin Institute, putting Philadelphia in the national spotlight, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the region and providing months of sustainable tourism revenue.”

Sandra Jackson-Dumont will lead the eagerly awaited Lucas Museum of Narrative Art when it opens its doors in 2025.

She took on the role in January 2020, and later that year announced a series of leadership appointments, bringing six women on board, including a chief curator, five of whom are people of colour.

“I’m an advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, that’s a huge part of who I am,” she said at the time, speaking to the LA Times. “But when I’m hiring, I’m looking for the best and most qualified candidates — and that was them.

“As we strive to become a vital source of education, inspiration, and dialogue for our close neighbors around Exposition Park, all the communities of Los Angeles, and people around the world, we could not be more thrilled with the team we have been able to recruit, and we are immensely proud to announce.”

Jackson-Dumont comes to the new museum following an extensive museum career, including six years as the Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Chairman of education at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and eight years at Seattle Art Museum as deputy director for education + public programs/adjunct curator. She has also previously held roles at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

She will lead the curatorial, museum experience, education and collection management teams at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which will hold a collection of 100,000 works of art in the collections—including original illustrations, paintings, comic art, photography, and the arts of filmmaking, within a brand-new building in L.A.’s Exposition Park.

“The work that Sandra has done throughout her extensive museum career is impressive and we look forward to her leadership,” said George Lucas, co-founder of the Lucas Museum, philanthropist, and filmmaker. “We want the Lucas Museum to be a vital resource for our community and we believe Sandra will help us achieve that goal.”

Jackson-Dumont has a BA in Art History from Sonoma State University and an MA in Art History from Howard University.

Koyo Kouoh is a Cameroonian-born curator and an advocate for African art. She has been with the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa since 2019.

Kouoh studied business administration and banking in Switzerland, and cultural management in France. In 1994, she jointly edited a German-language equivalent of Margaret Busby’s anthology of writings by women of African descent, Daughters of Africa (1992), called Töchter Afrikas. In 2001 and 2003, she was the co-curator of Bamako Encounters (Rencontres de Bamako), a photography biennial held in Mali.

In 2008, she founded the RAW Material Company in Dakar, an independent centre of art, knowledge and society, staffed entirely by women. She served as its artistic director until 2019 when she took up her role at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.

Zeitz MOCAA is the largest museum of contemporary African art in the world, and it opened to the public in 2017. "Koyo came into a young institution that was pretty broken, with a lack of systems, lack of staff, and lack of funding," said Storm Janse van Rensburg, who Kouoh appointed as senior curator and head of curatorial affairs after she arrived. “The urgency was to bring it back to life.”

The museum's mission is to exhibit, collect, preserve and research contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, as well as hosting international exhibitions and developing educational and enrichment programmes. It is home to works by several renowned artists such as Chris Ofili, Kudzanai Chiurai, Kehinde Wiley, Glenn Ligon, Marlene Dumas, Wangechi Mutu, and Julie Mehretu, loaned from the private collection of Jochen Zeitz for the duration of his lifetime.

The formation of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa involved the transformation of one of Cape Town's historic landmarks, the Grain Silo Complex at the V&A Waterfront, into a contemporary art space. For designer Thomas Heatherwick and his team of architects, this was an opportunity to reimagine a former industrial building, creating a new kind of museum in an African context.

In 2020, Kouoh was recognised with the Swiss Grand Award for Art / Prix Meret Oppenheim.

Boris Micka is the founder of Boris Micka Associates, a leading architecture and design firm with specialisations in museums, exhibitions and expo projects.

Micka studied at Prague University of Arts, Architecture and Design, under Professor Josef Svoboda, and went on to develop extensive skills as an exhibition scenographer during his 35-year-long career. This includes over 20 years at GPD in Seville where, as creative director, he worked on several award-winning projects.

In 2008, Micka went on to found his own architecture and design firm, Boris Micka Associates (BMA), a team of talented people from across the fields of architecture, history, multimedia, scenography design & production. The studio collaborates on projects around the world including in Europe, the Middle East, the USA and China.

“I have been designing scenographies, museums, exhibitions, and crazy stuff for my entire professional career. It is how I think, this is what I do, it is how I communicate with the world for the last 35 years,” says Micka.

In recent years, BMA has worked on several notable projects, including Saudi Arabia’s pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The Saudi Arabia Pavilion at Expo 2020 fits into the opportunity strand, with a theme of ‘The Sky is the Limit’. It covers 13,000 square kilometres, with a design that conjures the image of a large window that opens up from the ground and soars towards the sky.

In 2022, the American Museum of Natural History will unveil a new addition: the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. BMA, in association with Tamschick Media+Space, is designing the interior architecture for the expansion, as well as content for Invisible Worlds, a new multimedia immersive interactive exhibit.

Other notable projects that Micka has worked on include the Museum of the Romanesque and Territory in Aguilar de Campoo, Spain, the Atturaif Living Museum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and the House of European History in Brussels, Belgium.

Suhanya Raffel joined the new M+ museum in Hong Kong in 2016 as executive director, and later became museum director in 2019

From 2013 to 2016, Raffel was the deputy director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, where she worked on the museum’s expansion project. Prior to this, she held a range of senior curatorial positions at Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. During this time, Raffel led several Asia Pacific Triennials of Contemporary Art, as well as working on many major exhibitions.

The long-awaited M+ museum opened to the public in November 2021, when visitors were able to discover its collection of around 1,500 works, set over 17,000 square metres of exhibition space and 33 galleries. The attraction, which is located in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, is also home to three cinemas, as well as restaurants, shops, a ‘mediatheque’, a Learning Hub, a Research Centre and a roof garden with views of Victoria Harbour.

“I firmly believe that the future history of the art museum will be written to a significant degree in Asia,” says Raffel. “Few institutions will be more pivotal to that story than M+, a brand-new centre for visual culture and a world-class landmark for a great international city. M+ delivers the stories from our part of the world, told by voices participating in and influencing the global conversation.”

Raffel was a member of the Asian Art Council at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York from 2009 to 2014 and is also a board member of the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art.

Tim Reeve is the deputy director and COO of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the world's leading museum of art, design and performance.

Reeve’s strategic and operational overview of all museum activities includes overseeing the divisions responsible for the V&A's commercial and digital efforts, exhibitions, finance and resources, marketing and communications, security, and visitor experience.

Additionally, he is responsible for managing the V&A's collaboration with China Merchants Group, resulting in the opening of the new V&A Gallery at the Design Society in Shenzhen, China. He also directs the V&A's overall international activities strategy.

Reeve served as project lead on the ambitious new V&A East Storehouse in East London, which opened in May 2025. This new location functions as both a working store for V&A and as a new visitor attraction as part of East Bank, the new cultural quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The facility invites visitors behind the scenes to explore more than half a million works spanning diverse creative fields, such as fashion, theatre, streetwear, sculpture, design classics, and pop culture pioneers.

Reeve described the V&A East Storehouse as “A completely new cultural experience – and your backstage pass to the V&A, transforming how you access your national collections on a scale unimaginable until now.”

He is also chair of the East Bank Board, which is responsible for delivering the shared vision of the Mayor of London and the East Bank partners over the long term.

Before joining the V&A, Reeve served as director of historic properties at English Heritage, overseeing the National Heritage Collection's 420 historic sites.

A graduate in Ancient History from Royal Holloway, University of London, Reeve also studied at the Institute of Archaeology (UCL) and completed the International Executive Programme at INSEAD.

Eugene Tan is Director of both the the National Gallery Singapore (NGS) and of the Singapore Art Museum(SAM).

Tan has been Director of SAM since March 2019 and Director of NGS since 2013.

Under Tan's leadership at NGS Tan, the museum has created blockbuster exhibitions including “Reframing Modernism: Painting from Southeast Asia, Europe and Beyond” (2016), Yayoi Kusama’s “Life is the Heart of a Rainbow" (2017), "Century of Light” (2017–18), and “Minimalism: Space. Light. Object” (2018–19).

NGS has also established partnerships with leading international institutions, including Paris’ Centre Pompidou and Museé d’Orsay; South Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art; London’s Tate; and Ilham Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. It has showcased major touring exhibitions that highlight art historical dialogues between Southeast Asia and other parts of the world.

For the last four years Tan has been guiding a major renovation USD 90 million project at SAM. On appointing Tan, Edmund Cheng, chair of the SAM Board, said, “We are at an important juncture for our museum’s development as we undergo a major revamp of our premises. We have great confidence in [Tan’s] ability to make a positive impact and advance SAM’s role as a leading museum of contemporary art through a shared vision and strong collaboration with our curators, programmers, and SAM team.”