| D. Dominick Lombardi: On the outside looking in, it appears to me that the big city museum has a tendency toward the blockbuster exhibition since they are angling to attract a large population base that is both indigenous and transient (tourists), whereas regional institutions, especially one like the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, which is situated on college campus, looks to have a responsibility to attract and educate your student base, as well as a local population that is scattered and remote. Yet, I see a very big plus side with the smaller regional museums that can take greater risks with shows that are more challenging to the viewer as you move outside of the “sure thing”… |  |
Brian Wallace, curator at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York, New Paltz, interviewed by D. Dominick Lombardi
D. Dominick Lombardi: On the outside looking in, it appears to me that the big city museum has a tendency toward the blockbuster exhibition since they are angling to attract a large population base that is both indigenous and transient (tourists), whereas regional institutions, especially one like the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, which is situated on college campus, looks to have a responsibility to attract and educate your student base, as well as a local population that is scattered and remote. Yet, I see a very big plus side with the smaller regional museums that can take greater risks with shows that are more challenging to the viewer as you move outside of the “sure thing,” and perhaps, deal with issues like the environment, which your institution seems to be thinking about quite often.
Brian Wallace: There is a tension between the character of the regional museum and that of the university museum; effective regional institutions must harness the rootedness of the former and the inquisitiveness of the latter in their approach to audiences and programs. So, more and more, I see regional academic museums doing important work on local manifestations of national or international developments: our organizations can tell stories about and to local people, and add important, specific information to current debates about past, recent, and current artistic and academic practice. I also see these organizations working in various partnership modes—one-time, project-based, tactical collaborations to long-term, multi-institutional, strategic efforts—as a way to formulate interdisciplinary investigations of both familiar and less well-known aspects of the region’s art and culture. At the Dorsky Museum, for example, we’ve worked with our campus colleagues, a historical district, the village government, and private businesses on a summer-long project that places small artists’ studios around campus and town. We’re also working with several other organizations in the region on making collection databases—and the objects in those collections—more accessible to administrators and audiences.
DDL: This is a very potent “outreach” component you are talking about, which makes institutions like yours far more connected to your community, and that is great. Let’s call this your general underlying trend—to do what you can to help blur the line between community and institution. Do you see any trends with regard to the ways in which art is presented and displayed that further solidify the link to the community?
BW: The best outreach is organic; that is, it’s based upon, but it extends—perhaps in unexpected ways—questions about existing conditions.
Two examples: first, many regional museums host regular juried shows of regional work; like other institutions, we have tweaked the format of our annual show by emphasizing thematic consistency, by selecting outside curators with international experience with emerging artists, and by inviting SUNY New Paltz faculty and staff (formerly excluded, out of concern regarding conflicts of interest) to submit to the show. It’s worth dwelling on this latter point: changing conditions in academia means that art departments no longer have a handful of well-established artists who wouldn’t even be interested in a regional group show; art departments now are populated by greater numbers of part-time and non-tenure-track faculty who live in the region, who are active, engaged artists, and who are interested in participating in a regional group show. There are half dozen artists in our Hudson Valley Artists 2009: Ecotones and Transition Zones exhibition who teach here; their work is an integral part of the overall show.
Second, as a curator, it’s my great privilege to constantly scan and select from the field of artistic/creative activity in the region (and my great challenge to remain extremely sensitive to people and ideas while managing to operate as an effective and reliable administrator). So, 18 months ago, I was at a Center for Photography at Woodstock portfolio review, and Greg Miller presented me with the couldn’t-be-more-local-and-has-global-implications idea of photographing both banks of the Hudson from New York City to Albany. This idea—the brainchild of Scenic Hudson writer Reed Sparling—became a commissioned project consisting of an exhibition of two 80-foot-long prints with vintage and contemporary views of the two riverbanks, a publication produced with the assistance of the Open Space Institute and the Furthermore Foundation, and a trove of great stories about borrowed rides on borrowed boats and sudden storms on the Hudson, epic photo editing sessions, and astounding feats of physical endurance and technical savvy. The result is an historical document and a conceptually dense photographic work; other “outcomes” include new networks of area artists, experts, supporters, and audiences.
DDL: Having a sense of the regional artist pool is key, whether it be from the immediate area, or the adjunct art staff on campus. What about guest curators?
BW: There’s a long (and complicated, and contested) history of artists, intellectuals, collectors, and other people with a strong interest in the arts traveling to and living in this region. We’re taking advantage of this often hard-to-spot expertise by inviting a diverse group of people to organize selected exhibitions, events, and other programs at the museum in the coming years. Through these relationships, we hope to maintain a lively debate about regional art and regional issues, balancing a sense of place with a sense of discovery, and balancing an awareness of history with an awareness of new developments.
