ART

Florida Museum Hires Corcoran Director: Corcoran Gallery of Art Director Christina Orr-Cahall, who resigned last month after six months of controversy over her decision to cancel an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs, has been named director of the Norton Gallery in Palm Beach, Fla. After Orr-Cahall leaves the Corcoran in Washington on Feb. 1, she will spend 2 1/2 months as a Woodrow Wilson Center guest scholar studying “The Impact of the Print Media on the Mapplethorpe Controversy.” The Norton is a small private museum with a permanent collection focusing on 19th- and 20th-Century Impressionists. Orr-Cahall worked there as a curatorial consultant for two years in the late ‘70s. Her cancellation of the Mapplethorpe show last June, which she said was intended to keep the museum out of a political battle over National Endowment for the Arts funding of potentially offensive art, was greeted with widespread criticism and calls for her resignation from the arts community. Orr-Cahall resigned as director of the Corcoran the day trustees were scheduled to vote on her future at the museum.