The Tamesis
The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles today announced two senior leadership appointments: Michael Wellen will serve as chief curator and Regan Pro will serve as the newly created director of learning, engagement and research. Wellen will start at the museum on April 6th, and Pro will start on March 2nd.
The Hammer’s chief curator, who oversees the museum’s contemporary art exhibitions and collections, publications, and registrar and programming teams, has been vacant since 2023 when Connie Butler left the museum to take on the role of director of MoMA PS1 in New York. The new learning, engagement and research role will bring Hammer’s public planning, community partnerships and education initiatives under one department.
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“Filling these two positions has really been a top priority for me since I came on board early last year,” said Hammer Director Zoë Ryan. art news In a phone interview, she noted that she “got to know the agency to understand what was needed for both positions” during that time.
The two roles make up the museum’s leadership, with Ryan serving as curator and Naoko Takahatake serving as director and chief curator of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at the Hammer Hall. When filling those positions, Ryan focused on “how those three people could work together,” she said.
Ryan said that during introductions, she asks people what makes Hammer special. Often, they’ll answer that it’s both their influential exhibition program, which includes the Made in Los Angeles Biennial and classic transfer shows like “Dig This Now!” and Radical Women, “it’s incredible how quickly they follow up with Hammer’s public projects,” Ryan said. “When I put the hammer down, one of the things that struck me was the deep, meaningful work that the public projects team was creating that was absolutely rooted in Los Angeles and the region.”
Ryan said the purpose of creating the new position and department is to bring the two teams together so “they can work more collaboratively” and have “expanded authority.” The goal is to find “what we can contribute to the field unlike any other institution,” she said, describing the approach as “both intellectual and practical.”
Prow most recently served as associate director of public programs and social impact at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, which is scheduled to open next year. Last May, Plow was fired from the Lucas Museum as part of an overall reorganization of the museum that primarily affected its education team. Prior to joining Lucas, she served as associate director of education and public engagement at the Seattle Art Museum.
“Regan brought an incredible sensitivity, excitement and openness to exploration,” Ryan said. “She has been instrumental in developing programs that emphasize social impact and equitable access to the arts and education. These are core values at Hammer.”
A specialist in modern and contemporary Latin American art, Waylon comes to the Hammer from Tate Modern, where he was senior curator of international art. He is currently organizing a major retrospective of Ana Mendieta, which will open at the museum in July. He has also participated in exhibitions at Tate Modern for Takis, Lubiana Himid and Philip Guston.
He previously led the Tate’s Latin American Acquisitions Committee. Before joining the Tate in 2016, Waylon served as Assistant Curator of Latin America and Latin American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He completed a Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship in 2024.
“Michael brings this ideal combination of knowing Los Angeles very well and he’s excited to learn more about it, but at the same time his position at Tate Modern gives him a great international perspective and understanding of the scene,” Ryan said. “He was a man who cared about experimentation and what that meant for a place like The Hammer.”
