The Nasher Sculpture Center has appointed Carlos Basualdo as its next director.

Basualdo, 60, comes to Dallas from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he rose through the ranks over 20 years to deputy director and chief curator. He succeeds Jeremy Strick, the Nasher’s longtime director who retired last June. Basualdo takes over the post on May 12.

He first visited the Nasher in October, when he also walked around the Arts District to observe how the museum fit into the neighborhood.

Basualdo, a native Argentinian, described the Nasher, designed by architects Renzo Piano and Peter Walker, as connected to “the life of the city” in a Thursday interview. Moving through the space, he said, is “kind of uplifting and almost like a respite. The garden is so beautiful.”

Opened in 2003, and founded by developer and art aficionado Ray Nasher, the sculpture center houses over 500 artworks from Nasher and his wife Patsy’s collection, including pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Simone Leigh and Constantin Brâncuși, according to a news release from the museum.

While at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Basualdo and his team presided over landmark exhibitions including Bruce Nauman’s “Topological Gardens,” which showed at the 2009 Venice Biennale, and Barbara Chase-Riboud’s “The Malcolm X Steles,” featuring bronze and textile sculptures honoring the civil rights activist, according to the news release.

David Haemisegger, Nasher’s son-in-law and chair of the museum’s board of trustees, said in a statement that Basualdo’s “distinguished career and curatorial achievements align perfectly with our mission to champion the field of sculpture … we are excited for what lies ahead under his leadership and how he will build on the Nasher’s enduring legacy.”

Basualdo said he sees his new role as being a “listener” both internally with staffers and externally with the community.

In his view, the relationship between an arts organization and its locale should be reciprocal.

Visitors should feel represented by and proud of an institution, Basualdo said. In turn, the museum should make them “feel at home.”

Basualdo is inheriting a museum that has grown into a formidable local and national presence.

During Strick’s 15-year leadership, the center launched the Nasher Prize, which awards $100,000 to “a living artist whose body of work has had an extraordinary impact on our understanding of sculpture,” according to the museum’s website. There have been eight laureates, with the prize now awarded biennially.

The center has also developed partnerships that bring art into public spaces across the city.

The Nasher made headlines in the early 2010s over a dispute with Museum Tower, a nearby high-rise that cast reflections and shadows onto the Nasher galleries.

It’s been over a decade since the height of the controversy, but no solution appears to be implemented yet.

Basualdo is aware of the issue. “I will try to understand better the situation once I’m there,” he said.