Marian Goodman Gallery Hires Ebony L. Haynes as Senior Director, Announces Leadership Changes

Marian Goodman Gallery has hired Ebony L. Haynes to be its first-ever senior director, global head of curatorial affairs. She will start at the gallery in late November.

Haynes is best known for running 52 Walker, a Kunsthalle-style exhibition space that was under the David Zwirner umbrella and had full curatorial autonomy as well as an all-Black staff. Opened in 2021, the Tribeca space mounted 17 exhibitions during its run, including solos for Kandis Williams, Nikita Gale, Bob Thompson, Arthur Jafa, Sara Cwynar, and Nicole Eisenman. Haynes’s 52 Walker exhibitions were often critically lauded.

The Eisenman exhibition was the last under the 52 Walker moniker. Earlier this year, ARTnews reported that the gallery had transitioned to being just another David Zwirner space after Haynes’s promotion to global head of curatorial projects in late 2025. The first show staged there was a solo for Isa Genzken, which opened in March.

“How do I say this? It’s Marian Goodman,” Haynes said when asked about her decision to join the gallery. “For a long time, it’s been a gallery that I’ve been truly inspired by [in terms of] the kinds of exhibitions they’ve done over the decades, and a lot of their artists have inspired my own practice.”

When she was devising the blueprint of 52 Walker, down to its letterhead, Haynes took inspiration from Schema (March 1966), a series of conceptual poems by Dan Graham, who has shown with Marian Goodman since the late 1980s. “Schema influenced a lot of my decision-making in how I wanted to frame materials,” she said, adding that the numbers running down the letterhead were meant to help visitors “think about the ways the space is helping you process information.”

At Marian Goodman, Haynes’s newly created role will see her work on “exhibitions and special initiatives that deepen and expand its international program,” per a release. Haynes described it more simply: “I hope to support the direction of the gallery in this new moment. I don’t think this gallery needs a huge paradigm shift. It’s just so elegant and steeped in canonical history.”

In addition to Haynes’s hiring, Marian Goodman Gallery announced that Rose Lord and Junette Teng will now be co-presidents, sharing responsibility for its strategic direction and leading its management team, which includes Haynes. Emily-Jane Kirwan, managing partner and head of sales, will leave the gallery to focus on cultural philanthropy.

“As we approach the Gallery’s 50th anniversary, we are excited to lead it together—building on what has made the Gallery distinctive while creating new opportunities for our artists and program,” Lord said in a statement. “We are extremely grateful to Emily-Jane for her vision throughout her 15-year tenure and the central role she has played in expanding sales and institutional and patron relationships. She has championed our artists through significant projects, and was instrumental in the establishment of our Tribeca flagship.”

The leadership change is the first major one since the death of founder Marian Goodman earlier this year. In 2021, Goodman took on the role of chief executive and announced a five-person partnership to lead the gallery. Philip Kaiser, a longtime museum curator who joined the enterprise in 2019, served as president until 2025, exiting as a result of that year’s LA wildfires. Leslie Nolen continues on as a partner and member of the management team.

“Ebony is a natural fit for the Gallery,” Teng said in a statement. “She brings a strong curatorial vision, intellectual rigor, and deep engagement with artists, which aligns with our approach. Her appointment also reflects where we want to go next: expanding the ways we support our artists, creating new contexts for their work, and bringing a new perspective to our program as we enter the Gallery’s next 50 years.”

Since Marian Goodman’s move to Tribeca in 2024, Haynes said she has gotten to know the team from visiting each other’s galleries, which are around the corner from each other. Now, as part of the team, she said she is looking forward to listening to what the gallery’s artists are excited about and programming the Tribeca space.

“Having the space to be a vessel or the catalyst to translate an artist’s intentions as best as possible is hard to do well, but it’s the most rewarding kind of exhibition to do,” she said. “I was privileged to do so many at 52 Walker and within David Zwirner globally. I’m looking forward to doing that with the Marian Goodman artists.”

She added, “It’s a very unique experience to have people like Rose and Junette, who worked with Marian for so long, bring me along to continue stewarding her vision with them. It just feels really special—I’m not taking that opportunity lightly.”