Derek Gillman Q&A

Last Friday I talked with Derek Gillman, the new boss of the Barnes Foundation. (That's him below and here's why.) Normally I'd follow a post like this with some kind of broader thought about what the new director said, but... I'm on vacation. Suffice with this: Gillman's claim to the legitimacy of the move is pretty clearly laid out in the answer to the first question below. (It was actually the last thing about which he and I talked on the phone on Friday, but I thought it was key enough to bump it here.)

Again: See y'all on Aug. 21. (I probably won't catch up on email until Aug. 23 or 24. I'm already about 25 behind from the day or so before I 'officially' left.)

MAN: In March, Barnes board chair Bernard Watson said that the Ben Franklin Parkway is where the Barnes belongs. But in late 2004 you said that the move would have Barnes rotating in his grave. Can you tell us how you went from believing Barnes would be spinning his grave, to sharing your board chair’s vision that the Parkway is where the Barnes belongs?

DG: I've been a supporter all the way along. What I was saying is that I support the move -- but I think Barnes would have been rotating in his grave. I’m not going to retract that.

The point I've been trying to make is that there were certainly two Barnes which are really different from each other. There’s the Barnes who died leaving this tight indenture -- which the Orphans' Court has acted on --  which was constrained and constrained and constrained. Barnes at the end was very clear about what had to be at Merion, and that’s very different in spirit and in vigor and in optimism from the Barnes who started the project in the teens and twenties.

When he wrote the original indenture with [John] Dewey, it was optimistic and big-pictured and optimistic about American society and making the collection accessible. The Barnes who died prematurely would indeed [rotate in his grave], I'm sure… It's evident from the indenture that he left that he wanted the limited access, the investment of funds in low-yield government bonds and so on… But that's not the Barnes that I think we need to go back to, [I prefer] the Barnes who had this wonderful vision for this wonderful collection who was dedicated to improving America. That Barnes/Dewey vision of changing the world was an exemplary one.

MAN: Which is more important: taking care of the art and honoring as many of the donor’s wishes as  possible or serving a business and politically-minded board that wants to create a tourist attraction?

If it was a choice between those alternatives, you'd naturally say the former. But I don't think it is. There’s no question that there is an obligation of the board to look after it and to do the very best you can. That's just a given. That’s a basic premise of any org that belongs to AAM or AAMD -- which the Barnes doesn't yet belong to. The basic principles the ground rules for being a member of these organizations is that you adhere to those fiduciary responsibilities. As to your comment, I would not tend to agree with that. Having met them it’s a thoughtful board which is committed to serving the intentions of Barnes' desire to make it an accessible institution.

They have been cast into the role of a 'corporate board' that is devoted to those goals [of tourism promotion, etc.],  but I don't see that at all. It's a board which is really about trying to make the original vision of the Barnes a reality.

MAN: But, of course, Barnes didn’t exactly intend create a museum. He considered what he was founding a kind of educational institution.

DG: Like [PAFA] it's hard to distinguish what's distinctive about it because categories are easy. You want to drop things into categories. But the Barnes in allowing visitors to allow various people to look at pictures on the wall does things that are similar to museums. And in conducting education programs for adults it does things that are not dissimilar to what universities do. Some of this is getting to see that there are categories that we use as a matter of shorthand, and the Barnes doesn’t fit into any of these.

MAN: Before the Barnes board had hired a director it determined that it would re-create the Merion installations on the Parkway. Do you support that?

DG: It's as specified in Judge Ott's decision. He wants the galleries to be replicated. The arrangements will be replicated as they were in Merion. I think that’s the spirit of Judge Ott's decision. I think everybody -- the board, myself -- is committed to working within Judge Ott's constraints. I think that’s how he would interpret that. I read the decision carefully at the time. I think he’s a very thoughtful man. He spent huge amounts of time reviewing it.

MAN: Will you pledge to sell none of the Barnes' art, neither work on the walls in the galleries or otherwise?

DG: I have no thoughts of selling art. To say will I pledge holds me in a way when I haven't even started the job and I haven't even met all of the members of the board. But I will say that I have no thoughts of selling… It's not something I see as being necessary. There are times when you deaccession to build a collection which I’ve done [at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts]… but the Barnes doesn’t need its collection built. You only deaccession to build a collection. It's one of those collections where the founder says he doesn’t want to add to it. I suppose if you want me to say I pledge I could say I pledge.

MAN: What will you do with Ker-Feal?

DG: I don't know at the moment. I honestly don’t know. I'm at the point where I've just accepted the job and there’s so much thinking to be done.

MAN: For how much longer will Merion be open?

DG: I think that really does depend on how long the program phase takes. I guess construction is a bit more predictable because of how long it takes to build a building of that sort of scale which is a bit more predictable. I believe that the chairman Bernie Watson has said that it will be around 2009. You're looking at the time the building is completed before you move the art. It’s clearly going to take a very decent chunk of time to move everything even a short distance. I think people will have the opportunity to enjoy the collection in Merion in for a considerable time longer.

MAN: The condition of the galleries is not ideal. The light is horribly yellow and its intensity is often more harmful to a contemplative gaze than helpful. And there are works on paper that simply should not be out for decades on end and that are fading badly. Will you make changes in the galleries in Merion in short order?

DG: I must tell you this story: I once had a conversation with somebody who is long gone from the Barnes. They were pointing out a picture on the second floor, a Cezanne, and they were telling me about the blue areas. They said, 'Can you see the marvelous blues and the marvelous reds and how they relate?' I said, 'I can't relate. The blinds are yellow. The lights are yellow. So it’s green.' One has gotten pretty much used to seeing everything under that yellowish hue.

But I don't think there’s going to be a great deal of, I don’t know, to be honest at the moment I'm not there yet. All I know from doing other construction projects is that by and large one tends to focus on the new rather than on what’s there. The building is still going to be used further down the track and how it’s used is yet to be determined. It's a very beautiful piece of architecture.