Lerner replaces Executive Director Louis Grachos, who left in March for the New Mexico contemporary arts organization SITE Santa Fe, after a nearly two-year run in Palm Springs — a period dominated by pandemic closure.
“It’s at an inflection point in the arts,” he said.
In June 2020, the museum was criticized for waiting 10 days to respond publicly to the killing of George Floyd and calls for more racial equity in all segments of society.
Grachos was also criticized for the museum’s sale of an important 1979 painting by Helen Frankenthaler, “Carousel,” from its permanent collection.
Lerner said he prides himself on having presented some especially innovative exhibitions at the MCA Denver, including a 2014 retrospective of Devo cofounder Mark Mothersbaugh and a 2017 exhibition of work by Jean-Michel Basquiat that hadn’t been seen before in a museum.
He said he emphasized contemporary Mexican artists.
Prior to the MCA Denver, Lerner founded and served as executive director for the Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar, located in a suburb of Denver; it eventually merged with the MCA Denver in 2009.
County Museum of Art’s “big rock,” scaled downtown mural scaffolding with street artist Shepard Fairey, navigated the 101 freeway tracking the 1984 Olympic mural restorations and ridden Doug Aitken’s art train through the Barstow desert.