Asia Society Museum Director Picked to Lead Hirshhorn

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has tapped Melissa Chiu, head of the Asia Society Museum in New York, as its new director, The New York Times and The Washington Post report.

Ms. Chiu will take office Sept. 29, succeeding Richard Koshalek, who left the Hirshhorn last spring as plans for his signature project, a $15.5-million inflatable structure in the contemporary-art museum’s inner courtyard, collapsed amid a larger internal debate over the institution’s finances and mission.

A native Australian of Asian descent, Ms. Chiu moved to New York in 2001 for a curatorial post with the Asia Society Museum and became its director three years later. Smithsonian Undersecretary Richard Kurin, who chaired the directorial search committee, said her background and experience with the society, which operates 11 centers in the United States and Asia, “could help the Hirshhorn really have a global impact.”