Several months ago, Zoe Kahr received a phone call from someone at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art inquiring about an exhibition that her employer, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), was hosting.

“I actually didn’t know much about the Brooks until someone contacted me about the Black American Portraits show when I was at LACMA,” Kahr said. “I was Googling and looking things up about the Brooks and learned about the energy going on in Memphis and the rebuilding of Downtown. It really intrigued me.”

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That phone call led Kahr to apply for the open executive director position at the Brooks and to eventually travel to Memphis for an in-person interview.

“I was surprised by how much I liked Memphis,” Kahr said earlier this week. “I wasn’t expecting it to be as beautiful or for everyone to be as friendly and kind as they were. My husband was out for the interview with me, and we said, ‘Oh! This is very nice. This would be a lovely place to live.’ ”

On Friday, Aug. 5, Kahr was named the new executive director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. She will officially start in that position on Nov. 1.

Milton Lovell, who has been on the board of trustees for the Brooks for 10 years, was asked to serve as the chair of the search committee.

“It was a very intentional decision not to use a search firm,” Lovell said. “We were looking at a non-traditional approach so we could make sure we had the best pool of candidates who were interested in a Memphis job and not what a search firm thought we should have.”

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At LACMA, Kahr worked on the construction of a new museum for its permanent collection — an experience she is excited to put to use in Memphis as the Brooks moves to its new home Downtown.

“I think it’s very exciting for the Brooks to be part of this big cultural and civic hub Downtown next to the Civil Rights Museum and next to Tom Lee Park,” Kahr said. “The civic leaders Downtown are really interested in ways we can build partnerships and connect our programs. We want to be part of a bigger conversation and position art as a tourism driver but also as a way to think about identity, history, politics and nature and building connections between art and other areas.”

Paul Young, president and CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission, was also involved in the search process and is excited to see Kahr at the helm of the Brooks at “such a critical time.”

“In addition to all the work she will do managing the Brooks’ day-to-day affairs, they have a major construction project coming up, with a $150 million investment in the heart of Downtown,” Young said. “The new home of the Brooks will be a catalyst for tourism and complement the riverfront that we’re building. (Kahr) will be a critical partner for the future of Downtown.”

While Kahr is also excited for the move to Downtown, she recognizes that it is a ways off.

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“I want to build toward moving Downtown,” she said. “By the time we move Downtown, I want everyone to know who we are, everyone feels welcome at the Brooks and everyone knows what we are doing in terms of programming.”

During her brief visits to Memphis and through her research, Kahr said she has seen more similarities than differences between LACMA and the Brooks Museum.

“Most people don’t know that much about art and don’t feel comfortable going in a museum,” she said. “In every city in America, the museum’s job is to make people feel at ease and welcome. That’s work we did in Los Angeles that I’m excited to do here.

“I think the museum field has been going through this long, kind of traumatic, transition from being a place that was for a very small group of people, by a very small group of people, to a place that is very much a civic asset for a city.”

To bring everything full circle, the call that Kahr received a few months ago? She is bringing that exhibit to the Brooks in the fall of 2023.

“The Black American Portraits exhibit is really about the diversity and the amazingness of Black artists working today,” she said. “I want to do something alongside it that will celebrate the local artist community here (in Memphis). That exhibition is not a Los Angeles story — it has artists based other places. It will be a really nice opportunity to think about what bringing that exhibit means to Memphis as well.”