Richard Flood, who served as chief curator of Manhattan’s New Museum for five years, died on Sunday, February 16, at the age of 81. The news of his passing was announced by the museum.
“Richard had a distinguished career as a gifted curator and critic and was beloved by many,” New Museum Director Lisa Phillips told Hyperallergic. “He was one of a kind: curious, funny, and extremely well-read. He had a keen eye and a sharp wit. We loved him as a colleague and friend, and he will be dearly missed.”
Flood joined the New Museum in 2005 as chief curator and became director of special projects and curator at large in 2010 before retiring in 2019. Previously, Flood had spent nine years as chief curator of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and worked as managing editor of Artforum, director of Barbara Gladstone Gallery, and curator at MoMA PS1. In 2017, he published a collection of essays from his 40-year career as a writer and critic, titled Richard Flood: Notes From The Playground.
His first group exhibition at the Walker Art Center was “Brilliant!” New Art from London, a survey of 22 emerging British artists that was celebrated by the Independent as a highlight of the 1995 art season.
In 2007, Flood curated the New Museum’s inaugural show at its 235 Bowery location, Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century, along with Massimiliano Gioni and Laura Hoptman, featuring 80 contemporary artworks exploring the parallel practices of sculpture and collage. He would go on to curate numerous other exhibitions during his tenure at the museum, including Double Album: Daniel Guzman and Stephen Shearer (2008), featuring works that tackled rock culture and self-portraiture; Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other (2010), which examined the artist’s contributions to Brazilian Conceptualism; and The Last Newspaper (2010–2011), with works incorporating newspapers from as early as the 1960s.
Fellow curator and mentee Corinne Erni, who worked with Flood at the New Museum from 2010 to 2015, told Hyperallergic that Flood’s passing is “a big loss to the art community.”
“Endlessly curious, Richard was a brilliant curator and writer, and an unconventional thinker with a great sense of humor,” said Erni, now chief curator of Art and Education at the Parrish Art Museum in Long Island.
Flood was a founding member of the New Museum’s IdeasCity, a free public initiative launched in 2011 that brought together artists, environmental activists, and poets over a series of festivals in New York City and New Orleans.
“For me, the biggest deal is making sure that the younger generation gets involved in positive ways and that somebody is helping them,” Flood said in a 2021 interview with the Creative Process podcast.
Flood also contributed to the establishment of the International Leadership Council, a global ambassador program that supports the New Museum’s programs and exhibitions.
“We shared a tremendous excitement about bringing together creatives from different disciplines in conferences, public art commissions, and street festivals to generate new networks, synergies, and propositions for urban living in New York, Istanbul, and São Paulo,” Erni said. “Richard will live on in all of those who participated.”
