Honolulu Academy of Arts, Contemporary Museum merge
The Honolulu Academy of Arts and The Contemporary Museum will merge operations, boards and fundraising efforts on July 1, the museums announced April 28 following months of discussions. The 84-year-old Academy of Arts and the 23-year-old Contemporary Museum will keep their individual names at least through June 30, when a combined board will consider how to best brand the combined operations, the museums said in a statement. Both museums will remain open and neither will see immediate layoffs when they combine operations in July, the museums said.
The Contemporary Museum on Makiki Heights Drive occupies the former home of the founder of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Anna Rice Cooke, who moved to Makiki Heights after donating her Beretania Street home in 1925 to establish the Academy, the museums said.
Allison Wong, The Contemporary Museum’s executive director, will become deputy director for the combined operation. Under the agreement, some of The Contemporary Museum’s collection and assets will be displayed in the Academy of Arts, where they will be exposed to a much wider audience, she said.
The Honolulu Academy of Arts has about 100 employees, while the Contemporary Museum recently reduced its staff from 40 full-time employees to 16, Wong said. Although no staff members will be laid off immediately as a result of the merger, some redundant positions might be identified later in the year, said Lesa Griffith, spokeswoman for the academy. There will be no immediate cost savings related to the merger, she said, but fundraising efforts will be better focused.
The ten members of The Contemporary Museum’s board will join the 34-member board of the Honolulu Academy of Arts to oversee the combined operations, Griffith said. Beginning Tuesday, members of one museum will be able to visit the other at no additional cost, she said.
Membership fees at The Contemporary Museum will be unchanged through May 2012, when they are expected to increase to coincide with memberships at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Griffith said. Individual memberships are $55 per year at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and $45 at The Contemporary Museum.
Stephan Jost, the former director of Vermont’s Shelburne Museum and incoming director of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, will oversee the combined museums. “Other museums will merge in the next several years. I want us to be the case study of how to do it right,” Jost said.
