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"Questing for New Definitions of Contemporary Art" The New York Times, March 29, 1998 Marcia Tucker When I was a child in the 1940s, the idea that an art museum could be the target of controversy was like imagining a 300 lb. ballerina as the lead in Swan Lake. Yet today, just 50 years later, contemporary arts organizations have become nearly synonymous with pitched battles over the nature, value, and funding of art. The International Center of Photography, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Dance Theater Workshop, El Museo del Barrio, the Kitchen and Franklin Furnace, to name a handful in Manhattan alone, are arts organizations that have taken enormous risks to change the cultural landscape for the better. Controversy is endemic to them, because sparking disagreement and debate is exactly what the art of our own time does best, and most valuably: it incites independent thinking. Those of us who work in the field know that what we do often seems at odds with the very concept of a museum, because contemporary art by definition lacks the endorsement of historical scholarship, and the artists we support are, for the most part, alive and not ready to be promoted to the pedestal. Then too, the forms of so much art today are unfamiliar to traditional museum-goers (and everyone else), and there is nothing like unfamiliarity to breed contempt. Nowadays no one is likely to saunter into the Metropolitan Museum and say, "This Rubens stuff is garbage; his nudes are indecent and out of proportion, his brush strokes are too big, and you have no right to use our hard earned taxpayer pennies to show it!" But when it comes to contemporary art, most people have fairly rigid notions of what it should look like and how it should behave, and when art gets fed up with the rules and runs away from home, everyone races to call the police. They just don’t trust or value their own reactions when these differ from what they’ve come to expect. Institutions with the mission of introducing the public to new works of visual art, music, media, or performance find themselves in a state of constant crisis, under attack because of what we show (or don’t) and how we show it. Our difficulties are compounded by having to scramble to find financial support for those challenging projects which are the very reason for our existence. Not only have reductions in government spending disproportionately affected us, but there are fewer sources altogether to turn to for understanding, much less a willingness to engage with new ideas and forms. The issue of private versus public patronage aside, there is no great motivation to feed a mouth that’s apt to bite into your most cherished beliefs, chew them up, then spit them out undigested. Because of financial pressures, most of us who direct contemporary cultural institutions today are asked to be more than artists’ advocates, intellectuals, scholars and dedicated leaders. Increasingly, we are judged by our business skills and acumen, and by our sales- and showmanship. Concomitantly, success is measured by the size of our budgets, the number of programs we present and the extent of our audiences. The pressure to be bigger means becoming less focused, less inventive, less daring. Many organizations have simply abandoned interrogation¾ the research and development mode of exhibition practice¾ in favor of mainstream programming most likely to garner funding. Because it’s the sound bite that sells, easily digestible information is gradually replacing time-consuming experience as the operative mode of encountering art. But as directors of contemporary art museums, we have a public responsibility over and above the bottom line: we need to think at the very limits of our intelligence and imaginations, to explore the ever-shifting boundaries of art itself, and to share our questions, and our findings, with the public. A case in point is that of Bob Flanagan, protagonist of the critically acclaimed film "Sick," who was resident for weeks at a time in a hospital room built in the New Museum’s exhibition space. Many viewers were initially shocked by the sadomasochistic content of the installations and photographs on display, but ultimately came to discover poetry and beauty in the confrontational imagery. Bob transformed the use of what he called "pain-based pleasure" not only into a palliative measure against the cystic fibrosis which ultimately destroyed him, but also into an esthetic and extraordinarily moving experience for the great majority of our visitors. If the art we show gets into trouble because of its tendency to confront authority, to thwart expectations, and to subvert the status quo, if it provides material that disrupts stereotypes, conventions, and accepted notions of propriety or subject matter, then the organizations that support it are bound to run into trouble. But "mistakes" are the meat and potatoes of both our work and that of the artists, and yes, we do love to play with our food. Central to our responsibility is education, which provides a context for the making and viewing of the art we present. Unfortunately, many people think of learning as the act of strengthening and expanding what they already know, rather than as the process of engaging with that’s what’s new and strange and liable to change your thinking. Like exercising, there’s a sneaky tendency to strengthen that part of you that's already strong, not the part that needs it most. Can museums of contemporary art, and their theatrical and performance counterparts, survive with a different definition of success? Is it possible to flourish when what we show risks making many people uncomfortable or angry with what they’re seeing? If we’ve learned anything from the artists we work with, it’s that they’re always venturing into uncharted terrain (usually immediately after they’ve finally produced a body of work that people actually like). My own decision to step aside as director of the museum I started 21 years ago is bound up with my deep admiration for the courage of artists. From them I’ve learned that the minute you’ve accomplished something that you’re truly satisfied with, it’s time to steer off-course and scare yourself again. At the New Museum, unfamiliar artistic languages and practices are the raw material for creating an environment where visitors are encouraged to bring their own experiences, ideas and opinions to bear in a rewarding and meaningful engagement with contemporary art. We’ve been able to experiment, to entertain new ideas and methods of showing work, because the trustees and the staff are clear about our mission and our commitment to open-mindedness and experimentation. No one has ever said "no" to something just because it might not work, or because they didn’t like it. That’s why we’ve been able show such artists as Hans Haacke, Nancy Spero, The Guerilla Girls, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Andres Serrano and Gran Fury. It’s also why we’re been able to plan an uncompromising program of exhibitions, interdisciplinary projects and educational strategies for the future. Against the grain in our product-driven culture, the work of a contemporary art museum, and my own work as a director, is a process—a complex, challenging, engaging, and deeply meaningful one for everyone involved. This process, which is one not so much of growth as of change, isn’t defined by and doesn’t begin or end with any one individual or institution. It belongs to everyone who’s taken a chance on the unknown. What we do best is to provide an arena where artistic meanings aren’t fixed or absolute; where exhibitions, performances, and individual works of art encourage reaction, dialogue and debate rather than dictate taste from on high; where the nature of any given work of art isn’t arbitrarily ripped away from its context and isolated from the lives and concerns of its audiences. Like Sleeping Beauty, the idea of the museum as a social space, a space of public involvement, enjoyment and exchange, may be awakening from its long nap, kissed by that adventurous and controversial art which—ouch!—forgot to shave. Marcia Tucker, Director New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York |
