Expanding Art Museums: NC and UNC

You We're fortunate to have two art museum directors with us today. Edgar Peter's bow and called Peter is director of the North Carolina Museum of Art. And he came to us from Kansas City where he was curator of Renaissance and Baroque art for the Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum. He was administrative assistant to the director there. He's been the director of the North Carolina Museum of Art since May of 1981. Edwin Turner has been museum director at the Aklan Art Museum at UNC Chapel Hill since October 78.

He came from the Philadelphia Museum of Art where he was director. Edwin has entered his tenure with the Aklan and moves on to the Cleveland Museum of Art. This gives us the opportunity to kind of do a looking forward and looking back and maybe a comparison of an institutional as opposed to a state museum. And one of the first things we'd like to address is what is the function and role of a museum anyway? More teaching and forming entertainers? What is it that you people do? Traditionally, we've always said that art museums were to acquire, preserve, exhibit, and interpret works of art. And while it seems simplistic, it's still very difficult to improve upon those four words because they embrace a world of activities and functions and goals and purposes. We've spent untold hours in my staff in the Conservation Laboratory, for example, which we have a new 3,000 square foot conservation laboratory and we're in the process of raising money to buy state of the art equipment. So that these works of art, they'll never be pristine in the strictest sense of the work, but that they can glow and be and resemble approximately what they look like when they were created.

Those are things that a lot of people as you mentioned just aren't aware of because we're so removed from it. It is the role of the university and state museums different in that you may be addressing different publics and may feel that one may have a bigger sort of a head start. It can be assumed that the university community, for example, would have a head start on just the whole state in terms of knowing what is going on and how to approach the art museum. I think it's the important point of view, Fay. I'm not sure whether I agree or not. I think that ultimately in my thinking that while we can be said to have a built-in audience, and that is not only the student body, but after all the very considerable body of people that makes up the university, the professors, the people who work in the offices, we have a considerable built-in audience. But in terms of our planning, while we do everything we can to respond to the teaching needs of the whole university, not just the art department, we are first thinking of the public, the visitor who comes to the museum for rewarding experience. In our case, the public is necessarily a heavily one concentrated in the greater Chapel Hill.

Perhaps you can even say the triangle area, whereas I would assume Peter, at least in principle, is concerned about the whole state. But I think we would be alike in being interested in the visitor who comes from out of state, feeling that in each case, and, of course, significantly more so in Peter's case, because it's a much larger and a much more important collection, I hasten to say, but he and I are alike and always being interested in adding to the quality of life in this state and the rewards that the visitor to this state will have. I agree, I think that both of us probably would subscribe to something that I've always felt was a metaphor for a museum audience, and that is a stone thrown into a pool. And these ever widening concentric circles, Evan may, in theory, be addressing the smallest circle, his own students, maybe the art history faculty, but very quickly, he finds that he needs to address just as I do. Of all elements on the radius outward, in our case, we're very actively concerned with developing special constituencies.

We are keen to attract students and art historians and experts, but at the same time, we are also concerned with the general public, and then dividing that general public into a variety of different groups, senior citizens, children's groups, the well-educated laymen, our visitors generally. We've placed a great emphasis on adult programming, I feel that traditionally the museum, that my museum has not worked quite so hard as it should have in the past. The whole concept of lifelong learning that's been established, and has really taken root in the 70s, is something that we're trying to foster. You've also the idea frequently that art is something that you see, and I know that you've been doing more at the state museum, having art be something you can feel, and then pointing out there are sculptures and other kinds of things, that art is more than a one-dimensionally flat painting hanging on a wall. Well, we of course have the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery, which commenced a number of years ago as the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery for the blind, and we've taken a multi-dimensional approach now.

We're going to have programs for the sighted as well as for the partially sighted and then the non-sighted. And those programs will emphasize all of the components in one way or another over the years, texture, lawn, form, shape, and a variety of exhibitions. I think we've lost sight of the fact that just because you can touch a work of art that somehow that's the beginning and the end of this kind of educational process. I think actually Peter's work with the blind has been exemplary in the United States. I think that each of our institutions is fascinated with what can be done to involve people almost in spite of themselves. Your example of the circle, signing as a wonderful circle, and in to take that a shade further, I think one of the most interesting challenges is those outer circles, people who for some reason or other get to your museum, and thinking they may not be particularly interested in what you have to show them. And maybe you can just pull them in much more quickly than they ever would have expected. That's one of the sports in the museum world.

But in terms of reaching new audiences, new points of view, one of the things that we've been doing is building up the collection of master photographs. We probably have the most important collection of the history of photography, certainly in North Carolina and perhaps in the southeast. And we have particularly explored that during the past three or four years, not only because the opportunity for acquisition has been particularly attractive. But we have discovered as we worked with our public, and perhaps here I would particularly say the students aspects of our public, that the one art form that has potential for being meaningful to everyone is the photograph. Because after all, with the photograph, every one of us has had the so-called art creating experience. It's hardly anyone who hasn't taken at least one photograph with a brownie, maybe when he was seven years old or whatever it may have been. And I find that this gets to public very involved in having an experience they can understand. And perhaps from there, the next step can be the 15th century altarpiece, which ostensibly is far removed from their experience. But each of us is always interested in finding new ways to get people, help people to discover the excitement, the joy, the rewards, the great art museum.

You mentioned the acquisitions as something to draw the people in. What exactly is the strategy? I'm also aware that you are going in different directions, for example, at a state museum with a choir in North Carolina artists. Is that kind of presence become a priority reason for pursuing something? Since the museum's inception, really, we've had a strong orientation toward art of the state. But we feel, and I feel very strongly, that I've inherited, since I've been the director of collection, which embraces the art of the state, the region, the nation, and the world, and cuts across almost 5,000 years of the history of art. So I do feel that we need, while we've placed North Carolina art, I believe, in a proper perspective. It is, nonetheless, very important to us. We hope to continue to develop the collection, to acquire it. Moreover, we're going to feature the work of North Carolina artists in a series of exhibitions, which, the first of which is the summer, the Nancyville painter, Maud Gatewood, we're giving a solo show too.

And we will unfold a series of exhibitions devoted to the art of the state over the years. It's interesting we're exactly in contrast, because we are tremendously aware of the good work and the promise that's going on at Raleigh and recognizing we have very small spaces for exhibition. And we, frankly, in principle, do nothing with the North Carolina artist of today. On the theory that the greatest contribution we can make to the well-being of that artist is to challenge the artist with works of art coming in from elsewhere. We have, however, having done an analysis of collecting patterns in the state and recognizing that the University has a brilliant folklore department, we have done a certain amount of work in collecting 19th century traditional North Carolina folk art. And I say that in the most positive sense, the word, because I think traditionally the vibrancy of the folk tradition, when well done, is one of the most interesting aspects of the history of art. But you know, outside of this one area, the North Carolina philosophy of collecting, I think that really the approach to collecting that each of us has is almost identical.

There's one big difference, of course, and that is that Peter's Museum has one of the most important, certainly one of the most underestimated, perhaps the most underestimated collection of old master paintings in the United States today. What Raleigh has is stellar, it's so brilliant. People come from all parts of the world to see his collections, where we're much smaller, we're only 25 years old, and we didn't have those vast sums that he enjoyed, his museum enjoyed at the outset. But really, I think that Peter and his staff and the staff of the Ackland are searching for new acquisitions in older fields in exactly the same way, we all go to Paris, London, New York. But I think what's very happy about this North Carolina situation, which can't be said strongly enough, not only do Peter and I enjoy talking about works of art, but we enjoy discussing the market.

And I think he always knows anything I'm thinking of buying, and he tends to tell me what he's thinking about buying. Sure, it's partly, when you've gone out and had a jackpot in your hunch, you'd like to share it with someone who has the right degree of envy as well as admiration. But also, I think that we are interested in seeing what each other is buying. For example, there was a major 18th century Venetian painting, I considered buying when I first came to the Ackland, of painting by Spassiano Ricci, and after the liberation, I came to recognize that two extraordinary masterpiece by this artist were in the Raleigh Museum, so I released my hold in the painting, and it promptly went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. But we should, I think, do this thinking back and forth together. Absolutely. I think that if there's any distinction between the collecting patterns of the two museums, it is, of course, that we must marshal curiously, we're perceived as being the larger and possibly the richer museum, but in terms of acquisition funds, that isn't the case. At the same time, we feel that we do need to marshal our funds to buy fewer objects of greater importance.

Well, the State Museum was very fortunate in that the State did fund a million dollars back in 1947, and that was matched in kind by the Crest Foundation, which was the Variety Store Entrepreneur. Funding for art acquisition is no easy task, especially in these days. Just how do you go about securing the funds to make these purchases, which will be more and more expensive? Well, in the early 70s, interestingly enough, the State of North Carolina gave the museum an excess of $200,000 a year for four acquisitions, which I would think Evan is the equivalent of about 750,000 to today. And my predecessor, Musadama, bought some very good pictures, particularly American pictures, the Thomas Hart Benton, Andrew Wyeth, Freesicka, and other pictures, and measurably enriched the collection. We now must depend for the most part on the Fifer Fund, which is the Fund of the North Carolina Art Society, which we've bought some superb works of art with, and private generosity.

In that instance, I might cite Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Haynes of Winston-Salem, who have been very, very generous. North Carolina Museum of Art was established primarily as an old master museum, as you said. And in the 1970s, weeks we developed our Greek and Roman collections and our Egyptian collections, and more recently, through the generosity again of Mr. and Mrs. Haynes, we've bought some post-war paintings, which we badly needed. I must say the quality of the pictures the Haynes have purchased in terms of the American Art of the last 10, 15 years is just breathtaking. I must say one of the great things about those acquisitions, I think, is that for the public when they go into your new galleries, whether they like modern art or not, I watch them. They still flip, because these pictures are so strong and just so vibrant that you cannot fail to have a reaction. I think a positive, happy reaction is the beginning of understanding the contemporary scene.

And in doing such things for the public, this is perhaps, I think, the most important thing that Peter is doing for the artists of North Carolina, because getting the public turned on that puzzling statements have meaningful implications in terms of their satisfactions in life is the best way of getting the public. Looking at what's done locally. Absolutely. We spoke earlier of trying to engage and develop our audiences, and it was a very conscious decision on our part to put our modern and, in fact, our contemporary paintings squarely in front of the viewer. So your first visual experience upon entering the museum is to see these large post-war paintings that we've acquired by Stella, by Morris Lewis, by Kenneth Nolan, and by other contemporary artists. Some people might be a bit hesitant. We have to worry about getting the people into the museums and think, well, post-war, modern, old masters, classical, they just feel lost. How can what you're doing be made more accessible so that they aren't hesitant to stand off it, and you do get the people in to see these wonderful things that are there? Well, what we've done, we've worked very hard to establish, first of all, through expanded labeling, second of all, through audio tours.

We're building, we're in the process of building an audio-visual orientation theater, which will be adjacent to our temporary exhibition area, which will be open either this summer or early next fall. We've had a very wide, broad schedule of programs, of lectures, films, and concerts. We're working feverishly to produce additional publications that will inform the public about our collections. And we, all of these, plus the traditional museum instrument of public education, our docenting core has been intensively instructed over the last two years. And I hope that these measures will eventually pay off, and that the level of sophistication, the level of comprehension, and above all, the level of pleasure and appreciation will gradually rise among our visitors. I think the Royal Museum is exemplary for the range of its activities along these lines. We're much more modest.

We are desperately in need of space just to present our collections, so every bit of space that we have, we devote entirely to the objects, we too have a group of volunteers who are wonderful in the spirit with which they present the collections. I'm a great believer that the quality of the ambiance is a very important thing for the public, and ambiance that is peaceful, that is a nice place to be. And certainly, as we've all seen, those of us who've been fortunate enough to see the Royal Museum in his first week, they've created that in the Royal Museum. People that look just wonderful in that museum. So impressed with all your heavy activities last week, that the works of art shown forth, but my heavens, the people enjoying the works of art created the most wonderful atmosphere, you did a fabulous job in what you've designed. And in our modest way, we try to do the same. If you don't want to be there, there's no way you're going to be able to pick up the spiritual experience that's being offered to you. Thank you for saying that, because it's gratifying, because the first decision that I made was that we would have to change the ambiance of the museum.

The people had seen the old museum and had perceived it in quite a different way than I wanted them to. I have an excellent design staff, and I think we've probably worked harder on the installation and the design and the lighting and the presentation of the collection. And to create a pleasant, happy place, and as Evan said, it was very gratifying to see Sunday afternoon. We had 11,000 visitors in four hours, and everyone had a wonderful time. Another thing I wanted to touch on, Evan, is that with you, the funding initially was started by Mr. Acklin, who you have referred to. I don't know if you may think that the university actually provides funds for acquisitions. Just how do you go on? The funding structure is very precisely worked out, as I think should have been the case. When the university first learned of its good luck in being the recipient of the goods, shall we say, of Mr. Acklin's lifelong thrift, and after the museum was first opened, which was in 1958. An agreement was drawn up between the University and the Trust, whereby the Trust funds are used virtually entirely for acquisitions, though some monies are by agreement used for programs, either special exhibitions.

And the university funds the operations of the museum building, which is, in fact, its property, although Mr. Acklin's request, built the building. Initially, and it's a very clear structure that has been maintained all along, in no way, in our case, our public funds used for the acquisition of objects. I think probably we would all feel that whatever public funds are being used by the state for acquisitions are properly spend at the North Carolina Museum of Art, because it is the state's museum in the biggest sense of the word. That did initially get you going, and you have been mentioning a number of areas you're going into. I know that the Acklin, you've also been doing some oriental acquisitions, and I know that the ancient art collection has been another area that has been important over the state museum, but how big can we be? How many different areas can we go into and still have quality collections? In my case, oriental art, for example, is an area that we've more or less curtailed activity for the moment. I feel very strongly that a museum cannot permit its collections to outstrip the expertise it has on its staff.

We expanded so rapidly in the 70s that I'm, for the moment, quite content to be conservative, to refine and deepen our understanding of what we own, and then to place it on view. So for the moment, I think the traditional areas of American and European paintings certainly contemporary art, modern and contemporary art, Egyptian, Roman, and Greek art, eventually African, Oceanic, and Pre-Columbian art, which we will install at a later date and place on view. I'm quite happy to work within those restrictions. We tend to wander in the whole history of art. I like to think that quality is our only standard. We know, for example, however, that the University of North Carolina is doing more with Eastern programs, it has a growing program in terms of China and Chinese studies. The art department has just worked on the range we're by. I think probably the most brilliant curator, Connoisseur of Eastern Art in the United States today, a man named Sherman Lee, is coming to teach here next year as an adjunct professor, and we are beginning to do more and more with the Eastern field.

I have to say very frankly, one of the reasons is that I think often your money goes much further in the Eastern world. The opportunities are very attractive, especially if you're able one way or the other to have representatives as we do in Tokyo, which is the leading center for the acquisition of Eastern Art. But by and large, we do wander in all areas, after all, makes it more rewarding for us, and we certainly hope it makes it more rewarding for the public. Well, you certainly have just all the time actually to wander through, and does that become a problem? What might be some of the difficulties with running in art museum? Some of the obstacles you have to overcome? I love that each of us is dead quiet, starting out, what am I going to say and what am I not going to say? Because we could say there are no problems after all.

But after all, we're all running households at home, and we know there's no such thing as a household without its problem. We've had, this has been a very exhilarating week for us. As I said, we had 20,000, over 20,000 visitors in our first week that we've been open. And right now, I mean, I think that answer, that question you posed would be answered differently by each of us six months from now. Right now, we're very concerned with the housekeeping aspects, logistics. Six months from now, I'm going to be more concerned with our educational programs probably. We will be going back to the drawing board to see what has worked, what has been popular, what needs to be offered here. Another area that I'm concerned about, we will probably always have large weekend attendance. We have a fine museum shop. We're going to have a restaurant. We're trying to provide amenities, as we said earlier, to make the museum a very attractive, almost a magnet, if you will. On the other hand, from Tuesday through Friday, we're with the exception of the traditional school tours.

We feel that there's a large audience out there that with some a little more aggressive efforts on our part in marketing the museum and bringing them. Senior citizens groups, church groups, various clubs, and so forth, that we should be working to get those men and women who have the leisure time during the day to the museum during that period. I think Peter's right that your current concern varies in terms of your current realities. I mean, for example, Peter, I'm sure when you first thought about this post two and a half years ago, whatever it was, that your paramount concern then was space. I need space to show our great treasures. I think that's now our paramount concern, because our collections, which are growing at this point, at the rate of about 10% a year, are certainly much larger than the space that we have for them. The university has addressed this problem very seriously. The department which used to be in our building has just moved out into that very handsome new building funded by the state legislature. And so we are trying to find ways of getting more space. The university is considering a fundraising campaign to make possible the renovation that is necessary, a renovation that will increase our exhibition space by 140%.

So that's the paramount concern. Also, let's face it, one director is leaving, and there is the concern of the new director. I think, in fact, the new director has been chosen. We'll probably be announcing about 10 days or two weeks, and that director must work on a staff. So the icon at this point is at a very pivotal point of turnover, but after all, such points are always the most exciting ones, because there's nothing more full of potential promise than a new director and a new staff with new ideas, because every new director obviously has good ideas to improve in what his or her predecessor has done. Peter, a number of people who have been trying to keep abreast and push the development of the new state museum along for the past 10 to 16 years are experiencing a bit of concern in the difficulties and just getting the building there, getting it open, getting the roof fixed, and those kinds of things might have just taken so much energy out of the people involved that the museum might in some ways suffer. I can deny that emphatically. We're very excited about right now, specifically, what we're working on. This summer, we open a series of galleries of about 18,000 square feet for our European paintings, and we're turning all of our attentions to not only finishing that project in terms of construction, but we have the installations, we have to light, we have to paint the walls, we've got to select the pictures, we have to write the labels, and so forth.

We have to plan for that opening at the same time. My chief curator and designer have gone to Norfolk to see an exhibition, which will be our first exhibition this summer, it opens June 25th. It's entitled The Paris and the Great Age of Exhibitions, French 19th Century Salon paintings from Southern Collections, and we feel that's going to be an excellent exhibition to bring to North Carolina. In other words, this summer we have two large areas that we must install, and this will go on, but at the same time we're beginning a long range, we're beginning to implement a long range plan for publications, for educational programs. So to a large degree, the controversy that we've read about when we are not open is happily behind us. You mentioned the opening of the old masters, and that is going to be an event of national significance, the national press will be here.

What kind of things can we see in the future for the State Museum? Will we in fact become nationally known and sought out? Not nationally known, more nationally known, believe me. The State Museum is well known nationally and internationally. I'm going to step in. I think this is something that people in this state don't sufficiently recognize, because I think the stature of that museum outside the State, indeed I would say also the Ackland is much greater. I mean, the names of the Royal Museum, the Ackland are better known in Bond Street and London, and the full books on Honorary and Paris, I often think, than they are saying Charlotte North Carolina. And our challenge is to make sure that gets reversed. We still want to be well known abroad, and we're going to be, because just because the stature of what we have guarantees it, we want to get the local audience having those same perceptions. Absolutely. I've always felt that something of an irony that our paintings have been on view in New York and London, Paris, Washington, Amsterdam, and Cleveland. And in Raleigh, they've been in storage for many years, and only very small portions of the collection have been able to be seen.

I think all, and happily, though, these are not mutually exclusive terms, as some people have presented this, that to aggrandize the museum in terms of its national prominence, somehow means that we've slighted the citizens who own the museum, who own the collection. So I think that, and I might add another remark here too, that it's a cliche that a rising tide raises all boats, but the fact that Evans Museum prospers, that my museum's prospers, only benefits the other. And it also benefits the Mint Museum, it benefits the Greenville Museum, Fayetteville Museum, the Asheville Museum, as we increase, not only sophistication in terms of understanding of what art museums and art are all about in this state. We also increase interest, pleasure, and appreciation, and I think that's really what our ultimate goals as museum directors are. I think this is an extremely important point, because I think one of the great rewards of North Carolina at this time, and I think we all feel very strongly that it's an expanding state, one of the most promising areas in the United States in which to live, that the fact that all these museums are working together, sure, Raleigh is the biggest,

biggest by far in terms of its collections. But I consider, perhaps this is a modest in my part, but I consider the Raleigh Museum, my peer, institutionally speaking, because our goals are similar, the kind of exhibitions, the stature of the exhibitions, the quality of the acquisitions, we all have exactly the same attitude, and so it's inevitable that the whole quality of the art seems to use these various clichés is going to be affected as we work happily together. And so in looking ahead, the citizens of the state can at both museums expect to see more of life and more of things that reaffirm what is going on with them now, then, and maybe in the future. Absolutely, better and better.

Thank you very much for sharing your time with us, and we've had with this Evan Turner, who is leaving the Aklan Art Museum as director to go to the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Peter Ballon, who is director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, and who is looking forward to doing more great things there. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Anderson, for WUUNC.