About Lacy Schutz
I am a senior cultural executive with over 15 years of experience leading institutions and initiatives at the intersection of art, heritage, and place, designing and activating spaces where culture drives community, sustainability, and economic vitality.
I have led a multimillion-dollar capital project, revitalized under-resourced organizations into nationally recognized platforms, and built high-performing teams united by purpose and creativity. Across museums, galleries, and heritage sites, I focus on connecting people and place through authentic cultural identity and long-term strategy.
My leadership is grounded in collaboration, equity, and a belief that culture is not a luxury but an essential infrastructure for resilient, inclusive societies.
Selected Press
The Radical Director Shaking Things Up in the Museum World
Sacred Space: The Shaker Museum’s New Future Offers Opportunities for Embracing Contradictions
The Radical Director Shaking Things Up in the Museum World
"There had been all these different ideas and plans about what to do with it, but none of them were very achievable. When I arrived, it was clear that if we were going to have a museum, we needed to completely reimagine what it could be, which felt like a once-in-a-career opportunity."
Arab artists to look out for at Frieze London
Sacred Space: The Shaker Museum’s New Future Offers Opportunities for Embracing Contradictions
The Radical Director Shaking Things Up in the Museum World
“We envisioned our Frieze London booth as a conversation across time,” Lacy Schutz, ATHR Gallery’s director says. “Alsaleh’s work anchors us in the deep histories and material memory of the region, while Felemban’s practice pushes forward into speculative world-building shaped by language, data and ecology. Their dialogue reflects a Saudi
“We envisioned our Frieze London booth as a conversation across time,” Lacy Schutz, ATHR Gallery’s director says. “Alsaleh’s work anchors us in the deep histories and material memory of the region, while Felemban’s practice pushes forward into speculative world-building shaped by language, data and ecology. Their dialogue reflects a Saudi art scene attuned to both its roots and its horizons — a landscape that is never static.”
Sacred Space: The Shaker Museum’s New Future Offers Opportunities for Embracing Contradictions
Sacred Space: The Shaker Museum’s New Future Offers Opportunities for Embracing Contradictions
Sacred Space: The Shaker Museum’s New Future Offers Opportunities for Embracing Contradictions
So plans are in place for the 18,000-item collection, which has not been accessible to the public since 2009, to move about eight miles south to downtown Chatham, where the firms Selldorf Architects and Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects are working to transform an early 19th-century redbrick building—previously housing a sanitarium,
So plans are in place for the 18,000-item collection, which has not been accessible to the public since 2009, to move about eight miles south to downtown Chatham, where the firms Selldorf Architects and Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects are working to transform an early 19th-century redbrick building—previously housing a sanitarium, a theater, a roller rink, a hotel, a furniture store, a knitting factory, and a car dealership—into the Shaker Museum’s new home.
Selected Media and Speaking Engagments
The Henry Luce Foundation Conversations on American Art and Museums at the New-York Historical Society, 2023
The Henry Luce Foundation Conversations on American Art and Museums at the New-York Historical Society, 2023
The Henry Luce Foundation Conversations on American Art and Museums at the New-York Historical Society, 2023
This panel explored how museums can serve immigrant populations and help to preserve the tangible and intangible elements of their cultures that have been disrupted by war, interventions, or climate change.
The SHAKERS and WILDERNESS: Lacy Schutz with Lesley Dill: A film by Ed Robbins
The Henry Luce Foundation Conversations on American Art and Museums at the New-York Historical Society, 2023
The Henry Luce Foundation Conversations on American Art and Museums at the New-York Historical Society, 2023
In this layered visual film, archival images and Lesley Dill's artworks blend to expand on a far ranging conversation about the Shakers and Mother Ann Lee, on the American Wilderness as a place of deviltry but also salvation to early settlers, on ecstatic and visionary religious experience, the poetry of Emily Dickinson, the stain of Slavery and more, This film grew from a conversation between Lacy Schutz, Executive Director of the Shaker Museum in Mt. Lebanon, and visual artist Lesley Dill.
The Shaker Legacy: A Panel Discussion
The Henry Luce Foundation Conversations on American Art and Museums at the New-York Historical Society, 2023
The Shaker Legacy: A Panel Discussion
A panel discussion on the Shakers and their cultural and religious impact. This event followed a screening of the short original documentary "The Shaker Legacy" at Film at Lincoln Center.