DETROIT, MICH.- The Detroit Institute of Arts has hired Dr. Chassica (Chaz) Kirchhoff as an assistant curator of European Sculpture and Decorative arts. She begins on February 10, 2020.

Kirchhoff comes to the DIA from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Arms and Armor. There, as an Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellow, she worked to uncover and share the origin of one of the world’s foremost collections of arms and armor. Kirchoff’s background as an artist working in metal and glass informs her scholarly explorations.

“We are thrilled that Chaz has joined the DIA,” said Judith F. Dolkart, DIA deputy director. “She brings with her a strong record of research and scholarship, and we look forward to her work with the DIA’s esteemed collections and its visitor-centered presentations of those objects.”

Kirchhoff received bachelor’s degrees in Art History and Studio Art from Drury University, and earned a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Kansas, where her dissertation examined how armor and its representations in diverse media functioned as sites of meaning and objects of memory in the late medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire. From 2009 through 2018, she held several appointments as a graduate curatorial intern and research assistant in the Spencer Museum of Art, where she contributed to more than 13 exhibitions.