A Western Pennsylvania native has been tapped as the new director of The Andy Warhol Museum.
The Warhol announced Wednesday that Mario R. Rossero will step into his new role on March 31. Previous director Patrick Moore left the museum at the end of May last year.
Rossero comes from his previous position as executive director of the National Art Education Association, an organization committed to the creative growth and innovation of arts education — a job he began in January 2020. Previously, he served as senior vice president of education for the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
But before all of those roles, he started his career as an arts educator at the Warhol Museum and as an art teacher at Shaler Area School District.
“I am ecstatic. This is definitely a bit of a homecoming. This was my first professional job out of college as an arts educator,” Rossero said. He described using his grandmother’s 1990s-era word processor to send a hard copy cover letter to The Warhol as a newly minted professional.
“I think it was ‘97 to 2004 … I got a teaching job over that time, but I kept my Warhol time on the weekends. I got to lead workshops, lead the Weekend Factory, give tours, and so I’ve always had a soft spot for Warhol. I was just talking to someone, saying how he’s really influenced my approach to art making, but also my approach to working with others and collaborating,” Rossero said.
The Washington County native attended Fort Cherry High School, earned a bachelor’s degree in art and education from Washington and Jefferson College and a master of education in supervision and administration in visual arts from a joint program between Bank Street College of Education and Parsons School of Design.
“This is really a full-circle moment for Mario and The Warhol, where Mario began his career just three years after the museum opened in 1994,” Steven Knapp, president and CEO of Carnegie Museums, said in a release. “While taking on increasingly complex leadership roles throughout his impressive career, Mario has maintained a sincere and infectious enthusiasm for the mission of the arts, which includes making innovation and creativity more accessible to all. In each of his roles, he has excelled as a collaborative leader and a community convener, and we’re delighted to welcome him back to Pittsburgh and The Warhol.”
Rossero and his husband married last August and are now moving back to Pittsburgh so that he can take on the new challenge.
“It feels great. … It’s even more fun as a journey as a couple. When this opportunity arose, I talked to my husband about it. He said, ‘Well, babe, for this opportunity, of course we would move.’ So it’s been fun to see my home city through his eyes.
“The city has just grown and changed but still maintained all the charming parts of it that I’ve always loved,” he added.
He’s also looking forward to working more face-to-face after his stint with a national organization where a lot of the day-to-day was done remotely.
Rossero said he chose to work in arts education because art was a place of solace for him as a child.
“It saved me and I found a real strength in it, and it was a healthy means of expression and my parents wholly supported me in pursuing it,” he said. “And so as I decided upon going into being an art educator, it was really about the power of the arts to reach and serve everybody, especially those kids that were like me that might have felt a little bit outside of things but found a home through the arts.”
This is why the principle of accessibility to arts education for all has been a priority for Rossero throughout his career and will continue to influence his decisions as director at The Warhol.
“My education approach means that … maybe I care a little bit more about people, connections and collaborations and really finding ways to welcome and make sure people feel included and really resonate with the art,” he said.
“Coming to The Warhol, I just really see building on the strengths that they already have as an anchor in the community, but it’s a way to welcome in even more local Pittsburghers and Pennsylvanians to maybe — with fresh eyes — rediscover Warhol again. Because like I say, there’s sort of a Warhol for everybody.”
As for Rossero’s favorite parts of the museum?
“I really love his later work, the collaborations with Basquiat and Francesco Clemente. Those pieces really resonate with me. I like the layered artwork and each unique style responding to each other. And then, I really love the collaboration with his mom, Julia, and her beautiful calligraphy on some of his early drawings and his print work.”
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“As an institution, what I love about The Warhol is this idea of it being a welcoming space for all, and it’s been a place where people can find themselves,” he added.