Museum of Fine Arts Boston new Norman Foster designed American wing. Photo: Manuel.A.69 via Flickr

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston has hired Hirshhorn curatorial assistant Al Miner as assistant curator of contemporary art.

Last December the museum announced the hiring of Jen Mergel, the former associate curator at Boston’s ICA as the MFA’s contemporary curator. (Boston Globe report here)

Here’s a blog posting  on D.C. pub TBD which mentions Miner’s own artworks. Here’s Miner’s website.

Here’s the  all-staff message circulated by the museum:

“The Department of Contemporary Art and MFA Programs is pleased to announce that Al Miner, currently Curatorial Assistant at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian’s contemporary art museum in Washington D.C., will become our new Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art. Al is scheduled to start at the MFA in mid-September.

Since 2005, Al has supported and coordinated a wide array of contemporary exhibitions at the Hirshhorn and he has been directly responsible for a number of major artist projects and commissions. As curator and project team leader, he helped realize key works by Yoko Ono, Catherine Opie and Dan Graham, each resulting in gifts and acquisitions to the Hirshhorn. As project manager, Al was instrumental in supporting the major two-part exhibition, The Cinema Effect, and he is currently the Hirshhorn’s coordinating curator for the first North American retrospective of the work of the German artist, Blinky Palermo. Al has also been recognized for his writing and independent curatorial projects, and earlier this year was honored by the Goethe-Institut in Washington, D.C. with a Fellowship for one month’s travel to Berlin.

He has curated exhibitions in galleries and alternative spaces in the Washington, D.C. area, and regularly gives critiques at local art schools including the Corcoran College of Art + Design and the Maryland Institute College of Art. Al’s prior experience with contemporary art and museums also includes work at the Maier Museum of Art in Virginia, Artists Space in New York City, and the Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College, New York.

Al’s passion for contemporary art stems partly from his own background as an artist, graduating from Randolph-Macon College in Virginia with a BA in Studio Arts and an MFA from Queens College, CUNY in 2000. To build on his museum experience, he completed course work in Museum Studies and Curatorial Studies at The George Washington University in 2006. Al’s impressive experience with exhibitions, collections, cultivation, and cross-departmental projects, and his immersive knowledge and enthusiasm for contemporary art, hold promise for great contributions to the MFA and the future of the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art.”