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\n\tThe Seattle Art Museum (SAM) has appointed Frank Feltens as its next chief curator. He succeeds Jos\u00e9 Carlos Diaz, who departed the institution last October to be the chief curator of the Per\u00e9z Art Museum Miami. Feltens will start in his role on August 17.<\/p>\n
\n\tFeltens is currently associate director for curatorial affairs and curator of Japanese art at the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. He joined the museum as a postdoctoral fellow in 2016 and worked his way up to the associate director role, to which he was promoted in July 2025.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt the National Museum of Asian Art, Feltens has organized thematic exhibitions like \u201cImagined Neighbors: Japanese Visions of China, 1680\u20131980\u201d (in 2024) and \u201cMind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan\u201d (2022), as well as single-artist shows like \u201cHokusai: Mad about Painting\u201d (2021). He also curated \u201cFrom Kiyochika to Hasui: Modern Japan in Prints and Photographs,\u201d an exhibition drawing from the National Museum of Asian Art\u2019s collection that was on view \u00a0at the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum in Tokyo earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt SAM, Feltens will lead the museum\u2019s curatorial direction for its exhibitions, collections, and research across its three sites: the Seattle Art Museum, the Seattle Asian Art Museum, and the Olympic Sculpture Park.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFrank is exactly the kind of visionary leader we were looking for at this moment in SAM\u2019s history,\u201d SAM director and CEO Scott Stulen said in a statement. \u201cHe brings an exceptional combination of deep scholarship, collaborative leadership, and ambitious thinking about what museums can be. Throughout the search, Frank impressed us with his curiosity, preparation, and genuine enthusiasm about Seattle\u2014from spending time in our galleries listening to visitors to sharing thoughtful ideas about how SAM can build on its strengths while creating new opportunities for artists, audiences, and our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSpeaking about the Stulen\u2019s vision for the museum, Feltens said in a statement, \u201cWhat I have seen is genuine commitment to being a real hub for local communities while aspiring to visionary leadership in the museum sector. This is true ambition grounded in real collaboration and thoughtfulness, making it the exactly right moment for me to join. I am looking forward to realizing that ambition with Scott and the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Frank-Feltens.jpg?w=1024″] The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) has appointed Frank Feltens as its next chief curator. He succeeds Jos\u00e9 Carlos Diaz, who departed the institution last October to be the chief curator of the Per\u00e9z Art Museum Miami. Feltens will start in his role on August 17. Feltens is currently associate director for curatorial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2024581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2024581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2024581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2024581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2024581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}