Category: Uncategorized (Page 19 of 66)

If you live in Boston, you’ve probably visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a beloved local museum that preserves the impressive art collection of philanthropist and socialite Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924). Fewer of us, though, are familiar with the museum’s complicated legal history, and the public uproar that occurred when the museum announced its intention to expand several years ago. January of this year marked the ten-year-anniversary of the opening of the museum’s New Wing, so there is no better time to look back on this complicated but fascinating story.

On January 19, 2012, museum director Anne Hawley, then-mayor Thomas Menino, and several museum trustees gathered in front of the 70,000-square-foot New Wing and cut a red ribbon to formalize its opening to the public. But despite what this fanfare might suggest, the completion of the New Wing—and the years-long construction project that preceded it—were not without their share of controversy. While museum stakeholders envisioned the New Wing as a symbol of the museum’s entry into the twenty-first century, opponents saw it as an affront to Isabella Stewart Gardner’s stated desire that the museum not change in any way following her death, and a brazen attempt by the museum to ruin the institution’s unique history. Contentious debate ensued as supporters and opponents of the New Wing alike insisted that Isabella herself would have taken their side.

John Singer Sargent’s 1888 portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Isabella Stewart Gardner, born in New York City in 1840, first developed a passion for art collecting after learning that she could not have children, and dedicating herself to travel instead. A large inheritance obtained upon the death of her father enabled Isabella to purchase works by renowned artists including Vermeer, Whistler, Titian, and Degas, and before long, her collection had outgrown her home at 152 Beacon Street. At this point Isabella and her husband, Jack, decided to build a museum to house their collection, which ultimately numbered over 2,500 works spanning from ancient Egypt to their own day.

Just a few weeks after Jack’s untimely passing in 1899, Isabella acquired the land in the Back Bay Fens where her museum now stands. Devastated by the loss of her husband, Isabella threw herself into the building project, and after nearly four years of construction and curation, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (then called Fenway Court) opened on January 1, 1903. Visitors coming to the museum in search of a lesson in art history were surely disappointed: the museum offered no maps or guides, and almost none of the works had labels explaining their significance; instead, the arrangement of the collection was driven purely by Isabella’s eccentric taste.

It was exactly this unique arrangement that Isabella sought to preserve in perpetuity through her famously restrictive will, which mandated that the collection at Fenway Court was to be preserved without alteration “for the education and enjoyment of the public forever.” Absolutely nothing in the museum was to be moved or sold, and no additional artworks could be added, or else the entire collection would be dispersed. In effect, the museum was to be frozen in time even as the years wore on.

Isabella’s wishes were followed to the letter for decades, but by the turn of the twenty-first century, it became clear that the will’s restrictiveness was jeopardizing the museum’s success. Visitorship had skyrocketed, and the original building proved poorly suited for hosting hundreds of thousands of visitors per year. New spaces like a café, a bookstore, and a gallery for temporary installations were stuffed uncomfortably into the space. Conservation was becoming a challenge as well: the haphazard arrangement of the galleries combined with the high number of visitors meant that people were constantly bumping into the historic furniture, damaging it over time.

Because Isabella’s museum couldn’t be changed without violating her will, it seemed that the museum had no choice but to eventually fall into chaos and disrepair. But with the arrival of director Anne Hawley in 1989, a new vision for the museum began to take shape.

The New Wing of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, opened in 2012.

The board ultimately concluded that the only viable path forward was to add a new wing to the museum, and in 2004 they hired architect Renzo Piano to take charge of the project. Piano’s four-story New Wing, which opened to the public in 2012, sits a short distance from the original building. Its glass walls allow sunlight to flood the space during the day and provide a clear view of Isabella’s museum. It features a performance hall, a gallery for temporary exhibitions, classrooms and art workshops, conservation labs, a restaurant and gift shop, and nearly doubles the museum’s footprint, successfully addressing many of the problems that the original building faced after nearly a century of operation.

Hawley and the board acknowledged that while the addition of the New Wing was technically a violation of Isabella’s will, it was an unavoidable necessity. Supporters of the New Wing project also emphasized that Isabella’s collection would remain virtually untouched as the New Wing was an entirely separate but complementary space. But nevertheless, several local groups, including the Friends of Historic Mission Hill, voiced serious trepidation about the project, and the museum’s willingness to disregard Isabella’s explicit instructions. As such, in 2008, when the museum formally sought legal permission to break Isabella’s will, the Friends also filed a brief, pleading with city authorities to halt the project.

Ultimately, though, the project proceeded unabated, and the New Wing has not suffered for popularity since it opened. In 2016, it was awarded the Harleston Parker Medal, which the Boston Society of Architects has awarded to the “most beautiful building” in the city every year since 1921.

Regardless of how we each feel about the New Wing, we can all agree that Isabella herself—whether she would love or hate the New Wing itself—would have gloried in the drama surrounding the project. She was known by her contemporaries to be an unconventional woman, at least by the standards of her own time, and as journalist Francis Storrs has written, in her lifetime she “happily watched her mythology grow, even if it meant letting false accounts of her exploits go uncorrected in the press;” she even went so far as to advise a friend to never “spoil a good story by telling the truth.” The construction of the New Wing certainly made for a good story that aroused strong opinions in its various constituents—which Isabella herself surely would have appreciated.

Internships

Preliminary Assessment of Glass Containers Used to Store Fluid-Preserved Specimens, Smithsonian Institution, Suitland, MD

Plant Curation Internship, Plimoth Patuxet Museums, Plymouth, MA

Marketing Internship, Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, MA

Development Internship, Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, MA

DEAI Internship, Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, MA

Museum Education Internship, Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, MA

Tully Family Internship in Museum Education, Hingham Historical Society, Hingham, MA

Administrative

Regional Site Administrator, Historic New England, Salem, MA

Museum Coordinator, Katharine Hepburn Museum, Old Saybrook, CT

Museum Associate, Lippitt House Museum, Providence, RI

Education Program Coordinator, Plimoth Patuxet Museums, Plymouth, MA

Collections

Intellectual Property Coordinator, Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, CT

Assistant Curator, Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Lexington, MA

Collections Manager and Registrar, Hingham Historical Society, Hingham, MA

Development and Marketing

Corporate and Relations Foundation Manager, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT

Education Marketing and Outreach Consultant, Strawbery Banke Museum, Portsmouth, NH

Development Manager, Hingham Historical Society, Hingham, MA

Education

Museum Educator, Martha’s Vineyard Museum, Tisbury, MA

Education and Public Programs Manager, Pequot Library Assocation, Southport, CT

Education Coordinator, SEE Science Center, Manchester, NH

Interpreter, Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, CT

Visitor Services Representative, Nichols House Museum, Boston, MA

Exhibitions

Indigenous Program Associate, Plimoth Patuxet Museums, Plymouth, MA

Exhibits Preparator, Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT

One of the best parts of living in an increasingly digitized era is the greater access to things we may never otherwise encounter. For me, that means seeing museums and exhibits across the globe that were, at one point, completely out of reach. One such museum is the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in South Korea, the country’s only national art museum. MMCA boasts a large collection of art spanning an even larger time period and I recently got to see some of this art through a virtual exhibit on Google Arts & Culture titled, “Looking for Another Family.” 

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea, 2013

“Looking for Another Family” restructures the term and concept of family through “the sense of social solidarity.” In three parts beautifully framed within Google Arts & Culture’s digital platform, this exhibit considers 1) the ideal concept of family as the regulation and emotional turbulence, 2) how the body and mind are restricted within a society, and 3) how viewers can continue to discuss the issues raised by the artworks. One of my favorite pieces in the collection is Tandia Permadi’s Letter to Nan, which is a visual documentation of Permadi’s exploration with identity, sexuality, and abuse. Permadi draws on his childhood and his family’s strict adherence to the Indonesian belief that having a boy as your first born child is bad luck. Through this, Permadi discusses how his family treated him as a girl and how this blurred line between gender and identity affected his upbringing. Permadi’s story is not the only one to tackle difficult subjects like this; in fact, most of the works displayed in “Looking for Another Family” challenge longstanding beliefs about gender, sexuality, and the roles we play in society and family.

Letter to Nan, Tandia Permadi, 2020

Though I was engaged with the works here, it is easy to see how others may be turned away from the heaviness and overwhelming nature of the subject. “Looking for Another Family” is intentionally uncomfortable, it challenges beliefs and standards that many of us have grown up with and accepted as true; so, of course we would be uncomfortable in a space that seems to tell us otherwise. But, how do we as educators bridge that discomfort? How do we tell visitors that it’s okay to be uncomfortable, confused, or even unhappy with what they’re seeing? In my past experiences working with difficult subjects, I’ve found that I and many other museum educators were wildly unprepared to handle not just the complex discussions, but also the complex emotions and stories that visitors carry with them into these exhibits. Perhaps there is no easy answer, no one-size-fits-all solution – as educators, we remember that no two visitors are alike and no two visitors share the same experiences. Perhaps the best approach is the honest one, the approach that these artists have taken in being vulnerable and sharing their vulnerabilities with audiences. Some of my most endearing, memorable museum experiences have stemmed from speaking with staff who breach the fancy, elevated talk and instead share their own personal stories and thoughts, bringing their feelings and experiences into the conversation. By being vulnerable with our visitors, educators can make visitors feel comfortable being vulnerable with us. 

“Looking for Another Family” is, in one sense, all about vulnerability; it’s about breaking molds that traditionally made us feel safe and stepping into new roles in society. Though Google Arts & Culture doesn’t currently facilitate further educational experiences with the exhibit online, it is still a fascinating way to engage with the works at MMCA. The digitized exhibit format also encourages visitors and viewers to proceed through the space at a rate that’s comfortable for them. You can experience this for yourself here and learn more about MMCA here.

“It disgusted me even to move,” wrote an artist to his younger brother, “and nothing would have been so agreeable to me as never wake up again.” The year was 1889; the place, the Saint-Paul Asylum in Paris; the artist, Vincent van Gogh.

We’re accustomed to seeing Van Gogh’s breathtaking work in the museums we visit. Maybe, like me, you’ve marveled over a number of his paintings at the Norton Simon Museum in Los Angeles, far from his home in the Netherlands; or you’ve reflected on his self-portrait right here in Massachusetts at the Harvard Art Museums; or perhaps you’ve even gotten to step right into the artist’s world by experiencing the immersive Van Gogh Exhibition.

We know well how to appreciate his work. But have you ever seen a museum deal candidly and compassionately with his mental illness?

Saint-Paul Asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, 1889. Vincent Van Gogh.

As someone who cares deeply about mental health advocacy, I often wonder how — as an emerging museum professional — I can do my part to educate our world on the realities of mental illness. Many people still carry harmful misconceptions about mental health, even as they appreciate the work of artists and public figures whose lives were marked by such unseen sicknesses. Although there are countless historical figures whose writings, work, and actions make clear that they would now be diagnosed with some type of mental illness, the museums dedicated to these people rarely ever acknowledge the profound difficulty that they faced in life as a result of this. As museums, bound in our responsibility to educate and enlighten the public, shouldn’t shedding a light on mental illness be part of our job?

As it turns out, some museums across the globe are doing just that. Holland’s Van Gogh Museum, in fact, dedicated an entire 2018-19 exhibition to its subject’s mental illness. Van Gogh Dreams plunged visitors into an immersive journey through Vincent’s dark time spent in Arles, France in the late 1880s, where he ultimately suffered a terrifying breakdown. In order to help visitors understand what the artist was going through, the museum recreated his experience with the help of “a dark room with flashing red lights and shattered mirrors.” By creating such a visceral experience, the Van Gogh Museum invited visitors right into the tortured mind of Vincent Van Gogh in some of his most difficult moments — and there is perhaps no better way to foster empathy.

Patient artwork at the Glore Psychiatric Hospital Museum. Via Flickr.

Several former psychiatric hospitals function as museums today, shedding light on mental health history, telling the stories of the residents by displaying their artwork, chronicling the mistreatment they faced with surgical tools and equipment, and challenging visitors to overcome their own internal stigmas surrounding mental illness. (A few such museums are the Glore Psychiatric Museum in Missouri, the Oregon State Hospital Museum, and California’s Patton State Hospital Museum.)

In 2017, the Museum of Science in Boston did groundbreaking work by becoming likely the first major American museum to address mental health from a scientific standpoint —  but the goal, MOS staff explained at the time, was not to flood visitors with statistics and information, but instead to make people who live with mental illness feel welcome and heard, and to inspire empathy in all others. This should be the aim of every museum tackling topics of mental health — which, I believe, should be most every museum.

Then there is the question of visiting museums while mentally ill. Museums are institutions for all, places where people can come and be refreshed and rejuvenated — places where we should all feel that we belong. Yet issues of accessibility mean that, for so many, museums don’t feel like an option. The article “The Unseen Museum Visitors: Persons With Mental Illness” encourages museums to reach out to local mental health professionals, collaborate and share resources with one another, and simply embrace the idea of truly creating a community for all people. By committing to greater accessibility, education, and compassion, museums can be part of the solution to the discrimination that people with mental illness experience all too often.

About 1 in 4 American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental illness. This means that, should museums decide not to tell the stories of or create welcoming environments for human beings with mental health struggles, nearly 58 million people in this country alone will be neglected. There is great power in the museum to foster welcoming for those who have felt unwelcome all their lives, and to teach empathy to all others.

Van Gogh Dreams at the Van Gogh Museum, which experientially recreated the artist’s 1889 breakdown.

Imagine how many people would feel represented if every museum that displays a Van Gogh recognized his mental illness with grace, compassion, and knowledge. He, and so many others, deserve to have their truth told.