Guggenheim Elects Katrin Henkel and Peter H. Kahng to Board

Two moves, one message.

Guggenheim tightens its grip on the future—with connoisseurship and capital. By electing Katrin Henkel and Peter H. Kahng to its board, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is wiring taste and treasury into the same circuit—and doing it on Director Mariët Westermann’s watch. Henkel brings decades in old master drawings and a loan-hungry 1,800-work collection; Kahng arrives from the money side, a markets-savvy investor who’s been building patron networks across New York’s big museums. It’s not housekeeping. It’s a positioning play.

This is Westermann’s first real imprint on governance after taking command in June 2024, and it follows December’s addition of strategist Daniel Sallick and journalist-philanthropist Samira Sine. Four newcomers in under a year: a recalibration of the cockpit while the plane is cruising at altitude over New York, Venice, Bilbao—and Abu Dhabi.

Why now? Because the map is shifting. Saadiyat’s cultural district keeps stacking signatures, while the Guggenheim’s Gulf outpost remains a moving target: promised for 2025 completion back in 2021, with no confirmed opening date this September. Boards don’t control construction timelines, but they do decide what kind of museum shows up when the doors finally swing. Henkel’s eye and Kahng’s networks signal a board bracing for a more global collector base, harder fundraising, and a public that wants real accountability with the show.

Read the additions as strategy, not ceremony. Old masters expertise in a modern-contemporary constellation says the Guggenheim wants range—deep provenance on paper alongside market fluency and Asian art patronage muscle. The stakes are simple: keep the Wright spiral a world destination while expanding the brand’s reach without losing its soul. The board just told us how they plan to try.

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