Tyler Green Modern Art Notes

Continued from this morning…

MAN: And what are some of the Hirshhorn’s “unique strengths?”

RK: I
think there’s something important about being located in Washington, DC.
This city has symbolic importance and the Hirshhorn can be a truly
national museum of modern and contemporary art and beyond. We have here
representation from [nearly] every country in the world and we have the
highest representation of ambassadors and cultural attache. It’s a city
of think tanks that are doing research. I think what we’re going to
focus on is big themes and doing the appropriate research. [Image: Gerhard Richter, Sanctuary, 1988.]

One
of the reasons I took this job is the uniqueness of the location on the
Mall. I think we’re going to get in the business of curating public
space. I’m interested in what happens before people come here — I
think using new media we can do that, and in what happens after they
leave too. I think we also can be involved in curating the public space
that is not only on the main ground plane of this institution, but that
is also the Mall.

I also think you’re going to see us deal
with the city directly, with the city and the public space that
surrounds us. We’ll be international in that we can draw on the
international assets of this city, finding the right balance in all of
that.

We really want to engage the arts in big themes not just
in the galleries, but outside the museum, say in a tent-type structure
on the National Mall. One of these events would be in the fall and one
would be in the spring, in a kind of inflatable building. The structure
would house 500-1000 people and we’d have programming that includes
everyone, from trustees to directors to curators to artists. [Koshalek
showed me drawings of what the tent might look like.] It’s about where
the cultural institution needs to go in the future to be relevant. [Image: Ken Price, Orange, 1961.]

MAN:
Among major American museums, only a couple — you and the National
Gallery of Art — have failed to engage in an expansion project in the
last 30 years. The Hirshhorn’s collection has outgrown this building…
but the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building next door is empty. Do you want it?

RK:
[Grins.]  I’m on the committee to decide what happens to the Arts and
Industries Building — and that’s all I should say right now. That’s
all I should say because the committe hasn’t even  met yet.

I
know it’s there. I know what it is. I know its scale. It’s probably
going to have to be at the service of all the Smithsonian Institution
museums, but I would very much like to do something there before
[renovation] work begins. It’d be very similar to what the first show
was at MOCA. We did the building
next to the then-Temporary Contemporary and Maria Nordman did the
installation. We took her on a tour, she liked the building, and she
did a project inside on the main floor. But because of earthquake codes
we couldn’t let anyone in… so you only see her piece from looking in the
main doors. We’re thinking of doing something there, at Arts and
Industries that might be a little like that.

MAN: The other
Hirshhorn space possibility that’s been discussed over the years is
opening up the fourth floor of the Bunshaft building to the public, to
art. There have been structural and cost issues, if I remember
correctly.

RK: I haven’t been here long enough to know too
much about how possible that is or isn’t. There’s potential for that.
There’s physical expansion and there’s content-based expansion, and we
will examine that in a serious way. [Image: Robert Lazzarini, Payphone, 2002.]

MAN: I don’t know that
I would say that this is a problem, but it’s been an issue over the
years: The Hirshhorn has long had significant trustee representation
from non-Washingtonians, from people who are from other places and who
often have primary loyalties to other museums. Is that a problem? A
challenge? A nothing?

RK: The board will expand. It has been mentioned to me that there
should be stronger representation from Washington, DC, but we haven’t
made any decisions. Those decisions will be made between myself and the
board, but yes, that’s something that the board has had engagement
with. Leadership within institutions is a serious subject of interest
to me.

Earlier this month Richard Koshalek assumed the directorship of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. (Background on Koshalek is here.) Yesterday he and I talked about what ‘his’ Hirshhorn will look like. This is the first of two parts. Images are all of works in the Hirshhorn’s collection.

MAN: In the last half-decade or so a lot of modern-and-contemporary art museums have stressed the ‘contemporary’ part and de-stressed the ‘modern’ part. The Hirshhorn has been no exception. How do you want to straddle that divide here, especially considering the strength of the Hirshhorn’s modern collection?

Richard Koshalek: These are all initial thoughts because I’ve only been here several hours. We’ve not had enough time to sit down with our curators and do the kind of in-depth conversations you need with regards to what’s been done here in the past and what’s planned for the future. But it’s my feeling that modern-and-contemporary museums must expand the range of what they do. My view is we have to move beyond modern-contemporary and look at the larger historical context into which modern-contemporary is fixed. For example, an exhibition of an artist of the past who did extraordinary works on paper, like Beuys, for example, and a show that looks at the work of a contemporary artist, and go back to the past where there’s some connection. Then have a scholar of the past look at Beuys and so the general public is then able to make a connection between the works.

Recently I gave a speech at the Royal Society of Arts in London. I spoke on museums in the US and [Tate director] Nic Serota spoke on museums in Europe. I talked about what was lacking in museums of modern and contemporary art is the ability to do appropriate research, ‘deep research’ is the phrase I would use. There has been a constant rush to make the deadlines to open another show, another exhibition and museums are going to have to make a greater commitment to research, to give the curators the ability to do that research. I mean the money to travel, the time it takes to do it, the other resources it takes to do it.

We did this at MOCA and you see it to a large extent in the shows Ann Goldstein did. That started when I was there, a show like ‘A Forest of Signs.’ We gave Ann the time she needed to do the appropriate research, so when it was done there was new knowledge. I think the public now wants an institution that sees the larger context. I think it actually does take what we do seriously and wants more information and more substantial information on the work of artists. [Image: Marsden Hartley, Canuck Yankee Lumberjack at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, 1940-1941. Currently on view in Cezanne and Beyond at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.]

MAN: Does the Hirshhorn have the staff to enable the kind of meaty shows that somewhere like MOCA does?

RK: The other thing about research is that I see us having two curatorial staffs: The people who are here — there are some extraordinary people here, they’re the primary curatorial staff for the institution. The other I think is the curators that exist in the larger world that do extraordinary things, curators who are scaring me because they’re breaking new ground. I have a list of people who are re-thinking the world we live in. We see them as our second curatorial staff. We’re going to use them to bring in more of a comprehensive look at what this institution can be.

MAN: So you anticipate the Hirshhorn having more adjunct relationships?

RK: Exactly. And from different institutions — not just museums of modern and contemporary art, but also from broader, historical institutions. [Image: Wolfgang Laib, Pollen from Hazlenut, 1998-2000.]

MAN: When we think of MOCA we think of a museum that does smart, historical exhibitions. When we think of MCASD we think of a museum that mines its collection effectively. When we think of the Hammer we think of a museum that starts from the present and that works out from there. I’m not sure the Hirshhorn has a clear identity. What do you want it to be?

RK: It’s going to be an uncompromising museum. This is one of the legacies I think, from MOCA. We were truly uncompromising. In a museum situation like MOCA you were always being put in a position of making decisions that could compromise the institution’s integrity, so I think you’re going to see the museum be uncompromising in terms of what it does and it will set a high standard of quality for what it does in exhibitions, collections and education. I think we’re going to look at what the existing and outstanding strengths are of the institution are.

[Koshalek picks up a document and taps it.] The ideas that are here are what I believe in in regard to the Hirshhorn. We’re working on this now and we’ll be working with our board on it. At this stage in the history of our institution, we’re coming up on our 40th anniversary in five years, and then our 50th beyond that. The thing we need to ask is what are its unique strengths and what are the contribution it makes to the public and to the field of art history.

Continued here.