The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art Announces Fellows for the 2025–2026 Academic Year

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, a leading research organization dedicated exclusively to the study of modernism and its global and historical contexts, announced its 2025–2026 Fellowships.

• Jalen Chang (Ph.D. candidate, University of Pennsylvania) has been selected for a two-year pre-doctoral fellowship at the Research Center to work on his thesis “Artful Labor: Radical Work, the Paris Commune, and New Caledonia.” The dissertation focuses on the political fusion of art, craft, and work by French artisans in the Commune, as well as the repression of this radical idea of creative labor under the Third Republic in a South Pacific penal colony.
• Alex Zivkovic (Ph.D., Columbia University) has been selected for a one-year post-doctoral fellowship to work on his book project “Ambient Empire: Ecologies, Colonies, and ‘Nature Vivante’ in Modern Paris, 1860-1940”, which examines how greenhouses, aquariums, and colonial gardens influenced impressionism, cinema, and surrealism. In Fall 2026, he will start as Assistant Professor of Art History at Hunter College, CUNY.
• Noam M. Elcott (Associate Professor of Modern Art and Media, Columbia University), has been selected for a one-year mid-career fellowship to develop his book “Art™: A History of Modern Art, Authenticity, and Trademarks”, exploring how the practices of artists such as Manet, Picasso, Warhol, and Basquiat are inextricably linked through signatures and trademarks to legal regimes of authenticity and commodification.

Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO commented, “We are thrilled to host a new cycle of Lauder Center fellows, a talented group of thought leaders who will further the Center’s mission to shape the discourse around Modern Art. The Lauder Center is known for canon-expanding projects and these scholars are a welcome addition to the dynamic Met community.”

“Each of these incredibly exciting projects reveals how the borders of what we think of as art are always porous, as well as being shaped by different practices, environments and ideas,” added Neil Cox, the Head of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center. “I look forward to working with these fellows and seeing how their work shifts our thinking about modern art and modernism.”

About the Research Center

Founded in April 2013, The Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art is a leading center for scholarship on modern art, including a focus on Cubism and its legacies. The first and only research institution dedicated exclusively to the study of modernism within an encyclopedic museum, the Research Center makes critical contributions to scholarship through its robust program of exhibitions, lectures, film screenings, publications, research projects, and workshops. The scope of the Research Center’s activities can be found at:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/libraries-and-research-centers/leonard-lauder-research-center

Each year, the Research Center awards five Leonard A. Lauder Fellowships: for pre- and post-doctoral, and mid-career candidates, one senior, and one curatorial and conservation residency. Including the cohort announced today, so far 30 fellows have benefited from Center support. Recent awards have included projects on Ciphers and Abstraction, photography in Uzbekistan, Argentinian modernism, and the career struggles of Black artists in Brazil. The institution also supports the invited residencies of distinguished scholars of modern art, who pursue their own studies while participating in the activities of the Research Center.

Former fellows of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center have gone on to make their mark on the field, helming roles in prominent museums and landing teaching positions in major universities across USA, Canada, the UK, and South Korea. The Research Center continues to support alums through professional development opportunities, and some have successfully applied to its Publication Grants, ensuring that work on modern art continues to thrive internationally.