After leaving the Jewish Museum in 2023, Claudia Gould has joined the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York, as its next director.
The Shaker Museum houses one of to the world’s most significant collection of Shaker material culture. It’s in the process of constructing a new, $30 million flagship space to be designed by Selldorf Architects, whose recent projects include a renovation of New York’s Frick Collection.
The Shakers, whose name was derived from their tremors during ecstatic worship services, were a Christian sect that originated in England during the 18th century and spread to the United States. They were known for their communal living and celibacy practices, their belief in gender and racial equality, and their spare architecture, music, and furniture.
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In a phone interview with ARTnews, Gould said she was excited “to build a museum from the ground up,” a task she described as being “a whole different set of challenges than restructuring an organization.” In tackling this new challenge, Gould is seeking “to move the needle without moving the mission,” asking herself “how to push things in a way that’s really unexpected, but also spot-on.”
Gould previously directed New York’s Jewish Museum from 2011 to 2023. During that time, she oversaw a large-scale renovation, increased its endowment, and created a cross-disciplinary program. Prior to her tenure, she worked at the ICA Philadelphia and Artists Space in New York.
“I’m excited to be here, and also, it’s a very unusual move for me to make,” Gould explains of her career trajectory. “If people know me, they know that [this move to the Shaker Museum] makes total sense of my passion for design and architecture, and how I brought this into every institution I’ve worked in. I’ve always worked at the intersection of these fields, and that’s where my passion lies. I hope to bring that sensibility to the Shaker Museum.”