새로 부임하는 온타리오 미술관장

 신문을 읽고 있었다. 새로운 온타리오 미술관의 관장으로 호놀룰루 미술관에서 이사로 일했던 사람이 온다는 이야기였다. 헤드헌터를 통하지 않고 온타리오 미술관에 직접 연락하여 응모했다는데 눈길이 갔다. 하늘에서 감이 떨어지기를 기다리지 않고 나무에 올라갔구나 싶었다. 이 남자에게 남편이 있다고 했다. 오자가 났다고 생각했다. 살펴보니 그게 아니었다. 그는 게이였다. 남자도 남편을 가질 수 있을 만큼 다양한 세상이 되었다.

 솔직히 말하면 아직도 게이 커플을 대할 때 자연스럽지 못하다. 이성은 그들도 우리와 같은 사람이고 소중한 인격체라고 말하지만, 마음은 불편한 게 사실이다.

 여성에게는 참정권을 주지 않았던 시기가 있었다. 당시엔 그 차별을 당연한 것으로 받아들였다. 지금 와서 생각해보면 어리석은 일이었다. 동성애자의 권익도 동일한 차원에서 보아야 하는 것인가.

  <AGO appoints former director of Honolulu Museum of Art as new head>  

  Stephan Jost did not sit back and wait for the search committee, or its hired search firm, to call and invite him to enter the race to become the Art Gallery of ontario’s next CEO.

  “I approached them,” Jost said Wednesday, just after the gallery announced he has been chosen to fill the job vacated by Matthew Teitelbaum last spring.

  “An opportunity like this comes along once in 20 years,” says Jost. “I had to get in or wait for 20 years.”

 That was the beginning of a long getting-to-know-you courtship that involved several trips to Toronto for Jost, who has been the director of the Honolulu Museum of Art since 2011. (Prior to that, Jost was director of the Shelburne Museum in Vermont and the Mills College Art Museum in Oakland.)

 The AGO has been in search mode since Teitelbaum was named director of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

  “We believe Stephan is the perfect fit for the AGO,” says Maxine Granovsky Gluskin, who is president of the AGO board of trustees as well as chair of the search committee and a key player on the interim management team.

  He wasn’t an obvious contender. Hawaii is a long way from Toronto, and its museum is much smaller than the AGO, which is one of North America’s largest art museums.

 Jost, 47, grew up in East Lansing, Mich., and is a citizen of both the U.S. and Switzerland. His father, a professor at Michigan State University, and his mother, a ceramic artist, settled there after emigrating from Switzerland.

 But the new boss has notable links to Canada. His husband, Will Scott, is a Toronto-born educator and Canadian citizen. They were married in Toronto 10 years ago, and they have a 5-year-old daughter who is also Canadian.

 Those Canadian connections may help fast-track the government immigration process, a hurdle that must be cleared before Jost can reside and work on this side of the border.

 His plan is to move into his new office at the AGO in mid-April.

<By:Martin Knelman Entertainment, Published on Wed Jan 27 2016>