Follow-Up Discussion for Our Weekend Excursion (Part I)

In the aftermath of our bucolic bliss in the Berkshires and upstate New York, PEI reconnected with several of our intrepid voyagers for a little follow-up discussion. Kathryn Kraczon, the Assistant Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, as well as two Pew Fellows in the Arts, Daniel Heyman and Ben Peterson, provided thoughtful reviews and assessments of our visits. We offer them our gratitude for their contributions.

PEI posed several questions to our respondents. Following are Kate’s replies:

What do you think about the Tang’s practice of working with “non-professional” curators to realize their exhibitions? Through the years, Tang has worked with various professors of psychology, chemistry, physics, anthropology, etc., taking full advantage of expertise around the campus. For example, Lives of the Hudson, currently on view, was co-curated with Tom Lewis, an English professor at Skidmore. Artists often associate and collaborate with professionals from a range of expertise; why do you think this type of dialogue between curators and academics is so rare?

Kathryn Kraczon: As a curator at a university museum, I was extremely pleased that Holland Cotter recently noted the importance of the exhibitions coming out of these institutions: “If you want to find innovative models for small-scale shows with big ideas, teaching institutions are still the place to look, particularly university art museums.,” (“Top of the Wish List: No More Blockbusters,” The New York Times; September 9, 2009). Having recently moved from a “high-powered” contemporary art museum to a small, non-collecting contemporary museum, I’m familiar with how these two very different institutions function.

While the curators at both types of museums have the same values and goals regarding their exhibitions and their roles in facilitating new work—the artists and artworks are always the priority—what often affects programming at larger museums is an institution-wide focus on audience development and the position of the institution in the constellation of other regional, and national, museums. They are financially tied to tourism and the corporate sponsorship that accompanies a large audience (income from admission fees is negligible).

Smaller, often university-affiliated institutions cannot compete for this sponsorship and rely more heavily on grants and private donations, but are not pressured to generate the high admissions numbers. Instead, these institutions can focus on the regional academic and art communities, who are their primary audiences. Ultimately, larger institutions are constricted by programming constraints and smaller institutions are constricted by financial ones. The challenge, and gratification, of working at a smaller institution is that you can organize a great exhibition on any budget as long as you work creatively (and with artists who understand this and are willing to work within these parameters).

Using the phrase “more artistically open” to describe the Tang in relation to the Hessel is loaded and needs to be redefined. Perhaps the Tang’s practice of co-curating with professors (non-curators) is the primary method of integrating the institution into the campus and local community. For example, we learned that many Skidmore professors develop curriculums around these exhibitions. For the Tang, in a rather isolated location, this is an ideal form of audience development that both generates visitors and produces a unique exhibition program. I view the programming at the Hessel as equally innovative and not indicative of a high powered (aka blockbuster driven) institution. As Tom Eccles mentioned during the tour, they consider themselves to be in dialogue with the New York City art world due to their proximity, and I assume their programming is innovative, rather than crowd-pleasing, in order to entice New Yorkers and other regional art viewers to Bard.

I don’t believe the Hessel could function outside of the larger institution of Bard College. I suspect that the prestigious university or college that a museum is affiliated with adds a buffer of academic legitimacy to their programming, shielding them from outside influences. There seems to be less of a sense of ownership over programming from board members when the ultimate oversight belongs to the academic institution. The Tang encourages Skidmore professors to incorporate the exhibitions on view into their curriculums, but professors are, in general, reluctant to alter their syllabi year-by-year. If a university museum wants to develop these kinds of relationships it must be part of the museum’s mission, and as the full name of the Tang indicates— The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College—teaching is in the title and therefore a focus. Ian Berry has been the curator there for ten years and has forged these relationships with faculty. They don’t just happen, they take time.

We often think of art school as “training grounds, places where students can try and fail.” Did you find the Hessel Museum to model an experimental approach for its students? Does this translate to the artist's side of the coin? Bard has recently hired highly renowned curators in the form of Tom Eccles and Maria Lind, whom ambitious students want to work and learn from. Is this how interesting art schools are built as well, through an all-star faculty?

Kathryn Kraczon: The argument that there are too many Curatorial Studies MA graduates is the same argument being made throughout US humanities departments. There are simply more liberal arts MA and PhD graduates than there are academic jobs to fill.

The main issue to address is why Curatorial Studies programs are necessary despite their controversial status. While contemporary art curatorial positions do not currently require a PhD, and very few contemporary art curators have one, virtually every position from Curatorial Assistant upwards requires an MA. With some exceptions (such as Tufts or Williams) there are few excellent terminal MA Art History programs in the US, and if that MA program is within a PhD program, there will be little, if any, funding (and even less support from professors, who concentrate their energy on the PhD students). PhD programs mint future professors and rarely accept students whose career goal is to be a curator, particularly a curator of contemporary art.

The existence of Curatorial Studies programs provides a graduate degree to students who know they would like to pursue a curatorial career in contemporary art, but also rightly legitimizes Curatorial Studies as a discipline, much like Film Studies or Women’s Studies were legitimized over the last few decades. And, like Film Studies and Women’s Studies, there are exponentially more qualified applicants than there are available positions in the field. An Art History MA seems more flexible in terms of alternate careers choices than a Curatorial Studies degree—publishing, arts education, non-profit development, etc. are all career options related to the field—but my ignorance of what the curriculum of a Curatorial Studies program involves prevents me from judging the qualifications of its graduates.

Museum Education, in particular, is a field that needs curatorially-oriented staff and could benefit from Curatorial Studies programs that offer some form of education training. There is friction between Education and Curatorial Departments at most museums, and institutions are increasingly reshaping their educational departments to align more closely with curatorial programming. Eungie Joo, for example, moved from a position as curator at REDCAT to Director and Curator of Education and Public Programs at the New Museum, and has successfully integrated the education program into the broader museum programming.

If there is a homogenization occurring in Curatorial Studies perhaps a benefit will be, as with many inchoate disciplines, the development of an increasingly common language in the field. The value of a Curatorial Studies program like Bard’s is that students are working directly with two highly respected and relevant contemporary curators, Tom Eccles and Maria Lind. In an Art History program they would rarely have access to both an institution like the Hessel and to world-renowned curators.