It's hard to run a museum at any time, let alone during a pandemic. In this episode we glean some wisdom from Brian Ferriso, long-serving director of the Portland Art Museum. We cover the recent spate of deaccessioning among museums, the quest for updated thinking about museum goals, his focus on contributed versus earned income, the need for strategy in making new acquisitions, some exhibitions that have resonated with his audience, and the particulars of running a museum in the Pacific Northwest, including obligations to the pursuit of social justice.
Episode 46: Veronica Roberts
Art museum directors are caught up in competing travails, from financial shortfalls to racial reckoning to ill-advised deaccessioning. But talented curators across the U.S. are still managing to bring artistic talent to the fore, and Veronica Roberts, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art, is among the museum field’s most imaginative, capable, and humane. We retrace her steps at the leading museums in New York to her adopted state of Texas, with detours to artists’ studios, including those of Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, and Diedrick Brackens. And we touch on her use of Instagram to champion emerging artists as well as flora, fauna, and architecture.
Episode 45: Robert J. Stein
The digitally inclined will feast on this conversation with Robert Stein, among the art world’s most insightful and accomplished protagonists, who has conjured up and implemented innovative practices affecting museumgoers around the globe, both online and in person. We caught up with him during his first month as the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Deputy Director and Chief Experience Officer, and covered a host of topics, from virtual museum experiences during the pandemic to new research in the field, consulting enterprises offered by museums, online experiments that bore fruit, and a prediction about post-pandemic in-person conferences.
Episode 44: Susan Taylor
Museum directors are juggling more than ever before, and few as ably as Susan M. Taylor, the Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of the New Orleans Museum of Art since 2010. We retrace the beginning of her tenure, five years after Hurricane Katrina, and fast forward to the city’s appeal to international visitors, her 6 ½-acre expansion of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, increased appointments of women museum directors, how she has addressed challenges in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, the need to balance art history with the art of our time, and her tenure as president of the Association of Art Museum Directors.
,
Episode 43: Rich Cherry
So you’re up all night, wondering: Should I build an art museum? Before you hire an architect, best to start by calling Rich Cherry, Managing Partner at Museum Operations. He’s served as an executive director, COO, deputy director, CTO and CIO at several leading organizations, from the Albright-Knox to the Balboa Park Online Collaborative (BPOC), and designed and built new museums and non-profits from the ground up, including the Broad Art Museum and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. He’s also co-chair of MuseWeb, the largest museum innovation and technology conference in the world, with about 800 attendees from more than 40 countries each year. We cover the real sources of museum revenue, retrofitting old buildings to limit their carbon footprint and load them up with connectivity, running private v. public museums, working with starchitects vs. architects, innocent (read unfounded) assumptions in the boardroom, how museum expansions sometimes make as much (aka as little) sense as building sports stadiums, and the challenges of coaxing museums to share data and technological innovations.
Episode 42: Jaime Michael Wolf
Nostalgic for a nation of laws, not of men? In eager anticipation of a Justice Department dedicated to something other than xenophobia and the promotion of imperial rule, we turn to intellectual property guru Jaime Michael Wolf, an attorney who sorts out claims and counter-claims involving publishers, artists and their estates, designers and even chefs. We cover social media’s damnation of memory issued to the soon-to-be-evicted tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, how copyright is adapting to everything from the Internet to tattoos, a clear definition of Fair Use, Justice Souter’s opinion in support of 2 Live Crew, which yielded the legal principle of “transformativeness”, a new small claims court in the Copyright Office, solutions to the proliferation of cybersquatting, phony Apple stores in China, and much more. After listening, you’ll be ready for the first post-pandemic cocktail party to show off newly acquired knowledge about IP and the arts.
Episode 41: A Look Back at 2020
“Be kind rewind” is what video rental stores used to implore their customers before VHS tapes were returned. Since the end of the year is finally here, we’re replaying memorable snippets from some of 2020’s guests on the podcast, along with thoughts about the arts in the United States, as massive quantities of sage are being readied for cleansing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and while we’re all lining up for a vaccine. With sincere thanks to all our guests, here’s to a new start in January.
Episode 40: Christiane Paul
Art comes in all shapes and sizes--and sometimes it shows up on your screen. To separate the digital wheat from the chaff we turn to one of the world’s leading authorities in the field, Christiane Paul, author of Digital Art (Thames & Hudson), now in its 3rd edition. Prof. Paul is Director and Chief Curator of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center and Professor in the School of Media Studies at the New School in New York, and Adjunct Curator of Digital Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She conceived and has for two decades overseen both the Whitney’s artport website and its new media exhibitions, beginning with Data Dynamics in 2001. Her talk at Tate last year provides a concise history of the field. We dive into the origins of digital art, preserving Net Art, museum collaborations, augmented reality, collecting versus licensing content, how artists navigate the commercial colonization of the Web, and the complex boundaries between acts of protest and anti-social hacking.
Episode 39: Brad W. Brinegar
Many museums have emulated commercial attractions over the last generation—and now find themselves struggling back to life during the pandemic with reduced buzz, attendance, and contributions. For solutions we go to the source: a top advertising expert, Brad Brinegar, Chairman of McKinney, to help get their messaging aligned with these exceptional circumstances. He is predictably averse to thinking of museums as commercial preserves, and instead prescribes clever ways of reaching audiences, drawing on his studies in anthropology, as well as sharing wisdom about how empathy motivates consumer behavior. We cover effective advertising, including the Sherwin-Williams Emerald Paint campaign, how McKinney is going about achieving greater diversity in his sector, tv spots that went viral on the web, why art and art history can’t catch a break on television, how streaming services are challenging his field, and along the way remember shared experiences at the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth’s humor magazine, whose alumni range from Theodor Seuss Geisel to Budd Schulberg, Buck Henry, Robert Reich, and Mindy Kaling.
Episode 38: Tess Davis
You might think that COVID-19 has slowed everything to a near halt. That’s not the case with the looting of archaeological sites and proliferating sales of stolen objects online. For insight we turn to Tess Davis, Executive Director of The Antiquities Coalition, which battles cultural racketeering and the illicit trade in ancient art and artifacts. Founded by Deborah Lehr, who serves as Chairman of its Board of Directors, The Antiquities Coalition also seeks to improve law and policy, foster diplomatic cooperation, and advance proven solutions with public and private partners internationally. Tess Davis is a lawyer and archaeologist by training, and has been affiliated with the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, at the University of Glasgow, and previously worked for the nongovernmental organization Heritage Watch in Cambodia, first as Project Coordinator, and finally Assistant Director. We cover a lot of ground: How looters are taking advantage of sites left unmonitored during the pandemic, the illicit trade’s use of Facebook to fence stolen art, how U.S. law actually protects criminal conduct in the art market, the degree to which terrorist networks sponsor the looting and sale of artifacts, and a new program highlighting the “Ten Most Wanted Antiquities” worldwide.
Episode 37: Michael Brand
We voyage across the Pacific to Sydney, to speak with Dr. Michael Brand, director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. We explore his outspoken commitment to indigenous art and artists, the massive and environmentally sensitive expansion of his museum well underway, his views on public support of the arts in both Australia and the U.S., and the challenges of restitution of art with disputed title—from his days as director of the J. Paul Getty Museum to today. He shares his experience in curating a major exhibition of contemporary art that was installed during the pandemic, intended to demystify the field and the process of collecting major works beginning in the late 1960s. We get a little insight into Sydney’s place in the cultural firmament, as distinct from Canberra and Melbourne, and follow his thinking about larger responsibilities facing the directors of the world’s leading museums.
Episode 36: Alexander Bernstein
Arts advocacy takes many forms. In this episode we hear from Alexander Bernstein, president of Artful Learning, and Vice President and Treasurer of The Leonard Bernstein Office. Alex has long championed arts-infused instruction in schools from Florida to Oregon. He comes to the cause naturally; the son of legendary composer, conductor, educator, and humanitarian Leonard Bernstein, Alex is active in extending his father’s legacy, sharing responsibility with his sisters Jamie and Nina in introducing a new generation to extraordinary, wide-ranging contributions across music and related disciplines through public speaking, advocacy, and multiple media platforms. We touch on the state of arts in education, the pandemic’s challenges for musicians, centennial homages to Bernstein including over 6000 events worldwide, and upcoming projects spearheaded by Steven Spielberg and Bradley Cooper.
Episode 35: Petra Slinkard
Discerning museum curators today explore the fashion arts with an eye towards social and political lessons alongside an appreciation of design bravura. This episode’s guest, Petra Slinkard, is a leading voice in the new generation of scholars rethinking how to represent her discipline in compelling and timely displays. As the Director of Curatorial Affairs and The Nancy B. Putnam Curator of Fashion and Textiles at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, she presides over massive holdings, dating back to the end of the 18th century, when sea captains returned from far-flung ports with evidence of other cultures. Holdings today updated with new acquisitions she discovers on Instagram. You’ll hear her candid thoughts about women designers only now being properly acknowledged, genderless fashion, the unsung heroes of textile conservation, public responsibilities in curating, mannequins in paintings galleries, and insights into how her field is ever-changing.
Episode 34: Evan Beard
Curious about who keeps the art market functioning in the midst of a global shutdown? For answers we turn to Evan Beard, the Global Art Services Executive with U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management. Evan leads the Bank’s outreach to private and institutional collectors, and shares insights into market trends, the Middle East art market, the genteel world of art lending, considerations when opening a private museum, how auction houses cajole collectors, the Bank of America Art Conservation Project, and the impact of installation art and transitory art experiences on collecting. If you’re a collector or just wondering how those billions of dollars of investments race around the globe, this episode is not to be missed.
Episode 33: John Walsh
The J. Paul Getty Museum, the world’s wealthiest, was shaped under the steady hand of Dr. John Walsh, a renowned scholar of Dutch art. In this episode we glean a bit about his work as a curator and director, and dive into topical matters: Museums during the pandemic, commercialization of exhibitions, his role as a witness defending Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center’s exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe and its then director at a trial accusing them of promoting obscenity, decades-long neglect of advancing racial equity in museums, due diligence when researching antiquities collections, advice for new directors, and a brief preview of his forthcoming lectures on Rembrandt.
Episode 32: Sarah Wynter
We are binging on shows over streaming platforms as never before during the pandemic. In this episode we turn to award-winning actress Sarah Wynter to learn how the film and television industry has navigated COVID-19, beginning with the March 2020 diagnosis of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson in Sarah’s native Australia. We hear about shooting around shower curtains, love scenes with mannequins, how actors are staying in touch with fans and each other, cultural differences between Australia and the States, her reflections on playing the character Kate Warner opposite Kiefer Sutherland in 24, televised portrayals of terrorism, and her dedication to protecting people from gun violence through the organization Moms Demand Action. Follow her on Twitter and on Instagram.
Episode 31: James H. Duff
The headlines are everywhere: Multiple museums are today selling artworks to cope with financial challenges brought on by the pandemic. In this episode, the past chair of the Professional Issues Committee of the Association of Art Museum Directors, James H. Duff, shares why and how AAMD arrived at restrictions on “deaccessioning” decades ago, and the impact of AAMD’s April 2020 resolution relaxing those restrictions. We discuss why so much art is typically in storage, and consider potential threats, including a mandate to capitalize collections—putting their fair market value on museum balance sheets—and the risk that private collectors will be discouraged from donating artworks to museums that might sell them to cover operating costs. Or the possibility that cash contributions to museums will decline once capitalized art collections are fungible—transforming the image of a museum from that of an educational institution to an entity with suddenly liquid holdings valued in millions or even billions of dollars.
Episode 30: Danielle Quisenberry
Isolation is an unwanted obligation for everyone as long as the pandemic lasts, but for voice actors, it’s the preferred state of being year-round. In this episode we venture (virtually) into the recording booth at ButtonsNY, an approved recording facility that meets the Covid-19 Protection Guidelines of SAG/AFTRA, to speak with award-winning interdisciplinary performing artist and voiceover artist Danielle Quisenberry. We learn how she helps film and stage actors adapt to the rigors of voiceover work given the realities of shuttered cinemas and theaters, common misperceptions about the discipline, secrets of the craft, her training of talent at Edge Studio, and interdisciplinary projects she’s completed and those on the horizon. She’s coached multiple audiobook narrators, including the pseudonymous performer found here.
Episode 29: Aaron Betsky
What can we predict about post-pandemic urban planning? For answers we turn to Aaron Betsky, director of Virginia Tech's School of Architecture + Design, and a widely published critic on art, architecture and design. We touch on the required adaptation of office buildings, prescient predictions he made two decades ago, the need to focus on ‘upcycling’, or repurposing building stock, expanded use of post offices, the need to rethink museum design, and urgent concerns bearing down on designers due to economic and racial disparity, climate change, and other pressures.
Episode 28: Cynthia Schneider
This episode has us bouncing from Harvard to Washington to the Netherlands to Mali, led there by Dr. Cynthia Schneider, Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. She began her career with a PhD from Harvard in Dutch art, serving as Assistant Curator of European Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, then a professor of art history at Georgetown University for two decades, during which she was appointed Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands by President Clinton, followed by her appointment as a Distinguished Professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. In addition to her teaching duties there, she is Co-Director of three endeavors: the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University, MOST Resource; and Timbuktu Renaissance. Her recent and very candid assessments of the Trump administration’s diplomatic blunders are required reading.