Stephen Reily

There are at least 20 openings for directors of major American art museums now (the MCA Chicago just got added to that list with Madeleine Grynsztejn’s announced retirement last week – another big pair of shoes to fill). While openings occur for different reasons – some result from retirements and some from directors moving to other museums […]

I was excited to return to the Museum Confidential podcast to talk about Remuseum’s report on museums and marketing. In that report, we cite that museums invest, on average, less than 3% of their operating budgets on marketing, which is a level consistent with the American mining and construction industries. Listen to the full conversation

Permanent collections are growing at an unsustainable rate, costing museums—and the public—millions. Could joint ownership be the solution? The following was published as an opinion piece in The Observer on April 2, 2025. Museums continue to collect art, but most of it sits in storage indefinitely. A new model in Los Angeles is challenging the

The following was published as an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune on November 6, 2024. National Endowment for the Humanities Chair Shelly Lowe, from left, National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson and President Joe Biden applaud during a National Arts and Humanities Reception at the White House in Washington, D.C., on

I joined the Season 9 debut of the “Museum Confidential” podcast, with Jeff Martin at the Philbrook Museum of Art. We talk about Remuseum, my time at the Speed Art Museum, and how to reimagine art museums to meet the many challenges they face. Listen to the episode here.

I joined Heidi Zuckerman on her podcast “About Art”, to talk about museums as legacy businesses, the unsustainable nature of the current economic model of museums, innovation, the Director’s role, artists and what we can learn from them, new ideas and initiatives, what’s working, and of course why art matters! Listen to the episode here.