Sirén. (Courtesy TASIS)

The Helsinki Art Museum's director, Janne Sirén, who was involved with the stalled effort to build a Guggenheim outpost in the Finnish capital, has been selected as the new director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, in Buffalo, N.Y., according to The New York Times' ArtsBeat blog.

Dr. Sirén takes the place of Louis Grachos, who announced he was stepping down last year to become director of the AMOA-Arthouse in Austin, Tex., after 10 years as director of the Albright-Knox.

The Times' Carol Vogel shares the news that the Albright-Knox's new director "is believed to be the first director from the Nordic region to take the helm of a major American art museum."

Onnea, Dr. Sirén!

Louis Grachos. (Courtesy Patrick McMullan Company)

Louis Grachos, director of the Buffalo N.Y.'s Albright-Knox Art Gallery, will leave that institution for a new job at the Austin Museum of Art Arthouse (AMOA-Arthouse) in January, Artforum reports. Mr. Grachos, 55, had been with the museum since January of 2003 and will stay there through December.

Announcing his resignation, Mr. Grachos told The Buffalo News, "I feel really proud about what we accomplished over the last decade, but the opportunity in Austin is just rich with the kind of work I really enjoy doing."

Artforum notes that, before joining the Albright-Knox, Mr. Grachos served as director of SITE Santa Fe and curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

So what is the unwieldily named AMOA-Arthouse? It was the art museum created in November 2011 through the merger of the Austin Museum of Art and the Arthouse at the Jones Center in Austin. Mazel!