One Year Later

UPDATED: November 25, 2015, at 11:29 p.m.

During its renovation, the Harvard Art Museums experienced a simultaneous physical and conceptual shift. In the past year, museum coordinators, directors, and students have implemented a variety of programming focused on spontaneous connection and interdisciplinary inspiration. From the student board’s new input on the institution, to the public tours curated by individual student guides, to the plethora of programming for scholars, curators, and conservators, the institution is booming. More than 4,000 visitors have utilized the lecture halls, the three study rooms, the two seminar rooms, and other new spaces in the first year of operation alone. The institution’s caretakers consider the museums to be, more than anything, one huge classroom.

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A UNIVERSITY STUDENT

Jessica Martinez, head of the Museums’ division of academic and public programs, emphasizes first and foremost that students are the priority in these immersive experiences. During events, the first few lecture hall rows are regularly reserved for students, as are a few seats in the regular 15-person seminars. But one of the largest challenges the program directors faced was raising awareness of the Museums’ events among the student body. Officially, the museums were closed between 2008 and 2014, with the exception of the the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, which remained open through 2013. An entire generation of Harvard students arrived and left during that period of time. “A lot of what we’re doing has been generated by students themselves,” says Erin Northington, the museum’s manager of student engagement programs.

Rob J. Hopkirk ’18, a current student board member, first connected with the Museums during his time on the 2014-2015 First Year Social Committee, which planned a freshman-only “After Hours at the Harvard Art Museums” event in April 2015. According to Hopkirk, that collaboration grew out of a conversation the group initiated with the museum staff about freshman programming. The directors were wholly enthusiastic, and the event was billed as an introduction to the artwork, one piece of which had never before been seen. The idea was to help freshmen realize the enormous changes that had been going on before their arrival on campus. “It’s mind-boggling how you can just step across the street from the Yard, enter the lobby, turn the corner, and you’re facing a Picasso,” Hopkirk says. “That immediacy of the space is important.”

The student guide program, in which 24 undergraduates from 14 different concentrations craft their own unique public tours, has been updated since the renovation. The program is unique in that the staff does not force the guides to follow set routes; student guides focus on the objects they find most engaging and build dialogue based on their own artistic interests. David Odo, the director of student programs and research curator for University Collections Initiatives, works closely with the guides. Before the renovation, a majority of the guides were History of Art and Architecture concentrators, but Odo finds the greater spread of disciplines creates a more dynamic conversation. “It’s not that we expect them to be pre-trained in art history,” Odo says. “What is most important is that they have a real passion for learning about our collections, and having really interesting conversations with fellow students, with member of the general public, whoever comes on our tours.”

GETTING UNDERGRADUATES ON BOARD

The Harvard Art Museums’ student board arose in fall 2014 in response to a perceived lack of permanent connections with the undergraduate community. Led by Erin Northington, the 16 students work to maintain a vibrant link between the Museums’ programming and the student body. “I consider the board my mentors,” Northington says. “I think that we’re a team. I learn so much from them.” The board’s main tasks include meeting to provide input to museum operations, acting as representatives within their respective Houses and concentrations, and participating in on-campus events. Northington stresses that she wants students to be involved in whatever capacity they wish. “My hope is that students feel responsible for this place,” she says. “And they feel responsible in whatever way makes sense for who they are and what they’re doing here.”

In comparison with last year’s monthly meetings, the board now meets bimonthly to brainstorm student publicity, generate ideas for new programs, and set members up with events where they would like to volunteer. Northington has expanded publicity from the Museums’ still growing 1,000-member email list to other avenues based on the ideas and resources of the student board. For example, she recently disseminated specially made bookmarks to student board members to spread throughout their Houses. Additionally, “Corita Night,” held during community dinner on Oct. 15, linked the Museums with Harvard University Dining Services chefs to create meatball dishes inspired by Corita Kent’s screenprinted pop art. “A lot of museum education groups plan multiple years out,” Martinez says. “We do the same, but we want to be a bit more dynamic in what we offer so we can be relevant on this campus. So we want to respond to the conversations that are happening.”

Beyond showcasing exhibits, student board members serve as “satellite” representatives of the museum staff in the undergraduate Houses. Board members are aware of the full range of opportunities and events within the institution and thus can act as ambassadors. “It’s like having a staff member living residentially in the Houses,” Hopkirk says. “It’s a very big institution, and we don’t want it to become faceless. We can be the faces in the Houses.”

For the board members, the opportunity to work closely with the institution has granted them the chance to interact with the museum on a more intimate level. In November 2014, member Bobby T. Fitzpatrick ’16 witnessed German multimedia artist Rebecca Horn publically activate the installation “Flying Books under Black Rain Painting (2014).” “Without the Art Museums, I don’t know where else I would’ve seen that: a professional artist creating art. And every time I walk past it, I think: wow. I saw that happen.”

PROGRAMMING IS AN ART FORM

A sense of openness permeates the teaching spaces on the fourth and fifth floors of the Harvard Art Museums. Glass walls in the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies and the Art Study Center allow students and public patrons to see the activity of conservators and researchers. What is normally kept hidden and private is out in the open, as if the very art of conservation is now artwork. The museums’ programming as a whole embodies this approach. “We want our events to be a bit more organic,” Jessica Martinez says. “We’re trying to understand what the life of a student is here so that the museum spaces can be part of that regular schedule.”

In terms of curation, many of the current exhibitions within-gallery spaces stem from faculty conversations. The museum’s third floor currently features “Corita Kent and the Language of Pop,” an exhibit that originated in a Pop art course last semester with professor Jennifer L. Roberts. One initiative has linked a number of university departments through a three-part series titled "What's Light Got To Do With It?". Inspired by the UN designation of 2015 as the International Year of Light, the series will connect faculty members together with the public. Specifically for undergraduate courses, the University Teaching Gallery and University Study Gallery are designed to feature both semesterly and weekly rotations of pieces related to various courses in both the undergraduate and graduate curricula.

Francesca G. Bewer, research curator for conservation and technical studies, emphasized the importance of digital spaces in bringing these interdisciplinary programs to the academic and public communities. “The digital space is amazing, what it affords [these speakers] to do, to visualize, to see their amazing images on a large scale,” she says of the Lightbox Gallery on the fifth floor. One half of the Lightbox Gallery consists of a 12’ by 6.75’ wall installation of LCD HD screens. On the opposite wall, a double-layered fabric screen serves as a canvas for two high-resolution projectors. “That kind of display is pretty rare.” The Lightbox Gallery was heavily featured during the Cambridge Science Festival last spring, when 10 speakers presented their science projects using the space’s digital projection.

In a separate event, curators demonstrated to viewers how to restore a painting without physically altering it. The conversation put participants in dialog with curators who were studying how faded Mark Rothko paintings might be non-invasively restored through light projections. The seminar’s images are still available online on the 3D Digital Lightbox Gallery app, where a host of past projects are also linked.

For those who cannot come to the institution in person, or for those who seek a more kinesthetic approach, the Museums have also produced a medley of online resources. Their website features digital tours, including one called “Hotspots” that focuses in on individual objects. One Hotspot page hosts a video of the Bauhaus sculpture Light Prop for an Electric Stage in motion. On another page, visitors can use the digital tour of a Rothko print to see the extent of the “light” restoration curators worked on earlier in the year.

In addition to short-term programming and online projects, the Museums have pursued projects that promote student and curator collaboration over longer periods of time. Ethan Lasser, head of division of European and American Art, has been working on the “Exhibition of Progress,” which reassembles an interdisciplinary collection known as the “Philosophy Chamber” that was dispersed in 1822 to six different collections. In spring 2017, the Harvard Art Museums building will house those objects. Lasser’s job is to assemble the specialists and foster dialogue. “To have six voices from different specialties talk about one object is pretty exciting for me as an art historian,” he says. “It is also grounded in history in this case, because these conversations were happening a long time ago.” Lasser has brought together around 15 graduate and undergraduate work study students, research assistants, and catalog authors to work on the project, in addition to the semesterly interns he employs.

With regard to the rest of the building’s galleries, Lasser believes that the renovation process allowed for a well-reasoned shift in curation. In the years of “deadtime” when the museum building was undergoing its intense makeover, a similar restructuring was taking place within departments as the staff reorganized the gallery spaces. “We took people that, in some way, spoke different languages, and put them together for three weeks,” Lasser says. The galleries are now organized by chronology and theme rather than culture or media. “We tried to do it differently than other museums, which tend to be more culturally bound,” he says.

PUTTING THE INTIMACY BACK INTO ART

New spaces at the Museums allow students and public patrons to get a closer look at objects. Based on former study centers at the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger, the Art Study Center features slatted walls that house a rotating array the 90,000 objects unable to fit in the physical galleries. The full collection is constantly accessible by online reservation. Lasser stressed the value of spending a great deal of time with pieces in the Center. “Most curators don’t have that opportunity,” he says. “We gave the best real estate in the building to it, with the natural views. I think that shows how important we feel that is to the study of art—not just standing up in a gallery.”

Using this space, HAA 173g, a seminar led by professor Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, enables students to curate their own art exhibitions. “Drawings on Exhibition,” which will open in the spring on the second floor, will feature wall cards authored by the students themselves after spending a full semester investigating the pieces at close range in the Art Study Center. Michelle L. Kim ’18, one of the students in the class, marveled at the class’s unique intimacy. “We can get really, really close to [the pieces], we have magnifying glasses,” she says. “The professional there will lift the paper up to show us, I don’t know, a stain on the backside of the paper. Something that you can’t do when you’re casually walking through a museum.”

Laura Muir, research curator for Academic and Public Programs, emphasizes the events that occur within this space outside of course visits. Programs this semester focus on a variety of topics ranging from ancient coins and Islamic manuscripts to 19th century French drawings and prints. On Oct. 13, for example, Richard Tuttle, one of the most significant living postminimalist artists, gave a visiting talk at the GSD on his own works in the collection and American art at large. After the talk, Tuttle spoke further at a seminar in the Art Study Center where, alongside him, GSD students could examine a number of his works on display. Muir wants to continue this kind of programming in the spring. “It’s really drawing on curators and conservators and contemporary artists in informal conversations, but in that space with those objects,” she says. “We do really want to make students aware of those opportunities.”

CANVAS OF THE FUTURE

Every four years, a new student body will interact with the Harvard Art Museums. This is both a blessing and a challenge. As for events for these new generations, Martinez indicates that she is interested in crafting more film and performance events to diversify programming. One such performance, initiated last year by Northington and two student directors, was the premiere of John Logan’s play “Red,” inspired by the life of Mark Rothko. In addition to exploring the potential of digital resources, Martinez also would like to expand the variety of event programming. She indicated that the open spaces of the Museums are clearly able to support larger performance pieces. As the institution builds its programming, the staff seeks to expand its offerings for future generations of students. “We typically feel like we’re doing things right when we partner with a student group or a faculty member. Or a research center,” Martinez says. “That kind of collaborative work is really at the core of our planning process.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following corrections:

CORRECTION: November 25, 2015

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the museums that are now part of the Harvard Arts Museums were closed from 2008 to 2014. In fact, one of those museums, the Arthur M. Sackler, was open through 2013. An earlier version of this article also misquoted Erin Northington. In fact, Northington referred to the student baord as her“mentors,” not her “mentees.”