Shamim M. Momin, cofounder of the public art nonprofit Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), will lead the Bronx Museum beginning this September.
The museum announced Momin’s appointment as director and chief curator on Thursday, July 8, as the institution prepares to open its newly expanded and renovated $43.9 million South Wing in the fall of 2026. The improved wing will expand exhibition space and add a new lobby and main entrance. Momin, who was born in Manhattan and raised in New York state by immigrant parents from India and France, was chosen through a nationwide search following predecessor Klaudio Rodriguez’s departure for the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida, last year.
The longtime curator, who has previously held roles at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art and Seattle’s Henry Art Gallery, takes the helm of the Bronx Museum in the wake of ideologically fueled funding cuts to the arts made by the Trump administration. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) rescinded grants for the museum’s K–12 and older adult educational programs and for a 20-artist exhibition examining race and gender earlier this year, amounting to a combined $110,000, a museum spokesperson told Hyperallergic. The Trump administration began revoking NEA awards en masse in May, citing divergence from the president’s policy priorities. For a nonprofit institution of its size, the museum said in a statement shared with Hyperallergic, these cuts were “devastating.”
In an interview with Hyperallergic, Shamim approached the political moment with more optimism.
“I don’t imagine it’s going to be easy and not without its challenges,” she said, adding that now is the time when “your responsibility really takes hold to do what you can do.”
Shamim added that though the NEA cuts did have an impact, the museum wasn’t as affected as other arts institutions because it receives public funds as part of New York’s Cultural Institutions Group. The city footed the vast majority of the costs associated with the museum’s renovation and expansion, which broke ground last year. The museum has not yet announced a specific date for the 2026 opening.
“I hope that we’ll continue to be able to build our community with folks who care about it on the ground and want to keep things moving forward,” Shamim said.
After graduating from Williams College with a degree in art history in 1995, Momin began her curatorial career at the Whitney Museum, where she co-curated the institution’s 2004 and 2008 biennials. She founded LAND in 2009 after 13 years as assistant curator at the Whitney, a risky move following the 2008 financial crash, Momin told Hyperallergic. At the time, she sought to create “opportunities for artists who don’t always fit so comfortably in the institution” to bring their work into the day-to-day life of the public.
She said she chose to found the nonprofit in Los Angeles because of the city’s dearth of public arts organizations as compared to New York. Momin then served as the senior curator of the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, Washington, from 2018 to 2024. Prior to her Bronx Museum appointment, Momin worked as an independent curator and art advisor.
Momin told Hyperallergic that her priorities for her post include bringing her experiences linking art and social justice to the museum, thinking about accessibility both physically and “conceptually,” and listening to each individual staff member’s perspective on the state of the institution.
“One of the things I love about the Bronx Museum is it is always a champion of diverse voices, underrepresented artists, the coincidence of art and social practice, social justice work,” Momin said, “and that really aligns so beautifully with everything that I care most about too.”