Art Scoping

Art history has of late been more art and less history. University enrollment in pre-contemporary art is dwindling, and cost-intensive mega-exhibitions of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism are stilled as the pandemic roars on. For perspective we turn to one of the world’s leading experts in 19th century painting, Dr. George T.M. Shackelford, Deputy Director of Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum. He shares anecdotes about our shared summer as interns at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after we graduated from Dartmouth, along with details about reopening the Kimbell, how training in art history is faring, his experience with debunking a would-be masterpiece, the urgency of recruiting students of color to the museum profession, and upcoming shows in Fort Worth.

For truth-telling in the world of finance, we turn to Lola C. West, co-founder and partner of WestFuller Advisors, a boutique investment advisory firm in New York City that builds legacies of wealth for individuals, families and institutions. A trustee of Souls Grown Deep Community Partnership and Foundation, she shares insights on the intersections among social change, culture, and finance, and the alleviation of poverty in the Deep South, and lets us into the rarefied world of investing—leavened with the determination of a woman seeking a more progressive America.

We’re lucky to have a chance to hear from Arnold Lehman, senior adviser to the chairman of Phillips auction house, and director emeritus of the Brooklyn Museum. We dive straight into some very timely topics, including the slow pace of change in art museums grappling with their responsibilities in furthering racial and social justice, how media coverage influences the field, if and how New York will bounce back after the pandemic recedes, and his forthcoming book on the exhibition Sensation. We even pull back the curtain to discuss the nominating committees of art museum boards—and close with the moving account of his enduring attachment to a particular work of art.

We take a step outside into the world of horticulture, and then back into art museums, safely masked, for a conversation with Dr. Carrie Rebora Barratt, CEO and William C. Steere Sr. President of The New York Botanical Garden, and previously deputy director for collections and administration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We cover a lot of ground, from how cultural institutions began in New York City starting in 1870, to the social responsibilities of all kinds of cultural institutions, changing visitor experiences in compromised spaces, the disappearance of tourism, prevailing approaches to American art history, and her star turn a few years ago as a guest of the Colbert Report.

Art museum directors are challenged as never before, confronting the pandemic, demands for social and racial justice, low morale among staff who have survived layoffs, and evaporated earned revenue. The woman of the hour to sort it all out is Dr. Elizabeth Easton, former chair of the Department of European Painting and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum, the first elected president of the Association of Art Museum Curators, and Co-Founder and current Director of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, who is preparing a new wave of hires to tackle these and other challenges. Our wide-ranging conversation includes the different challenges facing contemporary and encyclopedic museums, trends in scholarship, how boards think about hiring—and firing—directors, the search firms that elevate some candidates above others, and likely shifts in the articulation of art museum missions.

It’s safe to assume that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is unaware that America’s oldest treaty is with Morocco, the first nation to recognize the fledging United States in December 1777. The breadth of American ignorance about Islamic history, art, and culture is unfathomable, but fortunately we have Dr. Sabiha Al Khemir joining this episode, sharing details of her journey from Tunisia to a PhD from London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, to becoming the founding director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. As a curator who has shaped and contributed to multiple exhibitions presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, the Dallas Museum of Art, and elsewhere, she is a writer, novelist, illustrator, and producer, and today serves as consulting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology.

Many of America’s art museums have been the target of blunt criticism for over a year, first for accepting funds derived from pharmaceutical manufacturers, fossil fuel companies, and arms merchants, and more recently for employment practices disadvantageous to people of color. While there is no single remedy for alleged shortcomings in governance and management, one option is available for these institutions to align their practices with stated values. An estimated $58 billion is under the management of cultural institutions in the United States. The founder of Upstart Co-Lab, Laura Callanan, joins the podcast, offering concrete advice on how mission-aligned investing can set cultural organizations onto a better path, putting their resources to work in furtherance of progressive goals, while not sacrificing financial return.

What can museums do to earn trust in their stated commitment to racial justice? For answers we turn to Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Deputy Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. And hear about her childhood home in Atlanta, a hub for civil rights advocates from Julian Bond to Stokely Carmichael. A life spent leading cultural institutions devoted to African American creativity and history. Along the way we’re treated to richly textured anecdotes about her times with Congressman John Lewis, the Rev. C.T. Vivian, and many others, her hopes that younger people will drive social change, displays in the NMAAHC that move her--and concrete advice on how museums can move from stated intentions to true equity and inclusion.

America is unique in harboring a sizable population of the scientifically disinclined—or more bluntly, climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers. Riding to the rescue on a motorcycle is our guest Dr. Julian Siggers. the Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology since 2012, and the newly appointed president and CEO of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. We delve into how, after receiving a PhD in human prehistory, he became the host of a series on the Discovery Channel and made his way into museums. He discusses the life of an archaeologist, ethical concerns facing museums, the impact of data science, how schooling differs between the UK and the US, why trade in dinosaur bones isn’t regulated, and multiple other topics.

Graphic identities abound in our media-saturated world—and in this episode we turn to a globally-renowned expert and practitioner to help us understand how he goes about inventing the typefaces, logos, and brand identities of leading art museums including the Guggenheim and the Whitney, the Barnes Foundation, and countless other cultural and commercial clients over many years. Abbott Miller has been a partner at Pentagram since 1999, and he has created multiple award-winning solutions worldwide. You’ll learn about the influences of his training at Cooper Union, the lasting impact of the Bauhaus in his field, the emotional underpinnings of the typefaces we take for granted, and his opinion of the graphic identities of the two competing presidential campaigns.