Franklin Sirmans, Sandra and Tony Tamer Director, has led the museum since fall 2015. Since coming to PAMM, he has overseen the acquisition of more than a thousand works of art by donation or purchase. Sirmans has pursued his vision of PAMM as “the people’s museum,” representing a Miami lens, by strengthening existing affiliate groups such as the PAMM Fund for Black Art and creating the International Women’s Committee and the Latin American and Latinx Art Fund. Sirmans has organized Toba Khedoori (2017) and he was co-curator of The World’s Game: Futbol and Contemporary Art (2018). 

Before his role as the Sandra and Tony Tamer Director at PAMM, Sirmans served as the department head and curator of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He also served as the Artistic Director of the 2014 Prospect New Orleans biennial exhibition, P3: Notes for Now. As a curator, writer, and editor, Sirmans has established himself as one of the leading voices in contemporary art. At LACMA, he curated Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada, as well as Fútbol: The Beautiful Game and oversaw major retrospectives by Glenn Ligon and Blinky Palermo. Previously, he organized exhibitions that originated at the Menil Collection such as Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, 1964-1966 and Maurizio Cattelan: Is There Life Before Death? and NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, which traveled to MoMA PS1 and the Miami Art Museum. He is the former U.S. Editor of Flash Art and Editor-in-Chief of ArtAsiaPacific, and he has written and edited numerous artist and exhibition catalogues.