Mattress Factory museum hires new curator.
The board of directors of the Mattress Factory announced Wednesday that Ian Alden Russell is the art museum’s new director of curating and Hayley Haldeman is executive director.
Ms. Haldeman, 33, of Mt. Lebanon, began serving as the North Side museum’s interim executive director in February 2019. A Mattress Factory board member since 2015, she previously worked as an attorney with the Pittsburgh office of Jones Day.
In a prepared statement, Michael White, president of the museum’s board, praised Ms. Haldeman for leading the museum during the COVID-19 pandemic, stabilizing its finances and completing a strategic plan.
“For more than 40 years, the Mattress Factory, under the leadership of Barbara Luderowski and Michael Olijnyk, created a place for ideas and provided unprecedented support for artists. These key hires, in partnership with the board and staff, are committed to the continued strength of the Mattress Factory and its dedication to artists,” Mr. White said.
For the past several years, the museum has brought in guest curators to organize exhibitions. Mr. Russell, 41, will start in June.
He grew up in Richmond, Va., and moved to Dublin, Ireland, at age 18. He auditioned and was accepted to sing bass in Anuna, an Irish choir. While
traveling internationally from 2002 to 2012, he said traveling with the choir helped him find his own voice and advocate for artists. In 2002, he earned a bachelor’s degree in ancient history and archaeology at Trinity College in Ireland. He earned his doctorate in history at Trinity College in 2007.
Mr. Russell’s most recent job was as associate professor of cultural studies and director of the master’s program in cultural management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is writing a book, “Do This Instead: Curating as Practice,” with Denise Markonish, a curator at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass.
In May 2015, at the 56th Venice Biennale in Italy, he curated an exhibition by Safina Radio Project called, “No permanence is ours; we are a wave.” Among Mr. Russell’s favorite exhibitions was one in 2017 called “Festivals, Funerals and New Life” with Melvin Edwards at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery in Providence, R.I.
He served as a project development consultant for an exhibition by artist Tania Bruguera at the Tate Modern in London. A Cuban artist and activist, Ms. Bruguera’s exhibition at the Tate in 2018-19 used an everincreasing figure to track the number of people who migrated from one country to another, adding in the number of migrant deaths.
Mr. Russell ran in and completed the Boston Marathon in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014, raising a total of $17,000 for the Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
He said he sees curating as a collaboration in which “many hands work together to support artists and produce their projects.”