MAN Q&A: New Getty Trust boss James Wood

First on MAN: Earlier this afternoon (EST) I talked with new Getty Trust president and CEO James Wood. Our conversation touched on some major issues, such as the Getty Museum's dispute with Italy, as well as some more abstract ideas about what the Getty Trust should be.

(See here for a quick post on the hire, and see here for the Getty's press release. LATer Christopher Reynolds has an early write-up. For some goofy reason it's under the banner "Entertainment News.")

MAN: Over the last ten months the Getty Trust has cleaned house of much senior staff and its board chair left too. Is it done? Do you think there’s more to do in that respect?

JW: I think they have accomplished most of what needed to be done. At the same time the Getty, any big not-for-profit institution in today’s world, [must demonstrate] eternal vigilance. I think that what I am going to do… If I was to take two words, what I want to do is focus on the mission, defining what its essence is; and integrity.

MAN: As the third largest foundation in America (after Gates and Ford), it seems to me that the Getty Trust should provide a bully pulpit from which the Trust's president can address important issues. However over the last number of years the leader of the Trust did not – and probably could not – do that. Do you agree that your new position should provide you with a bully pulpit, and if so, how do you plan to use it?

JW: I can certainly agree with the first — yes, the opportunity is there. Exactly how to use it — I would want to go slowly until I know more. The very fact that the pulpit is this high leaves me feeling an added need to really understand both the opportunities here and the people. There are so many people here I want to hear first-hand from. This search [that resulted in my being hired] has been very confidential. If there's any frustration it's that there are so many people here I haven't had a chance to talk to yet.

But there is one word in the Getty mission statement, talking about the visual arts and their capacity to build a more civil society. If the Getty can't contribute on that sort of level, then I don't think it is providing the leadership that it ought to and really must. Our society is, I think, in need of the kind of civility that the arts can bring. That doesn't mean that the arts aren't outrageous or rambunctious and all that, but the arts are concerned with truth, and that's really the nub of all this.

MAN: You may be brand new at the Getty, but certainly you've thought about the ongoing dispute with Italy. What, if any, role will you have in that, and will you jump into that right away?

JW: Certainly not right away. I haven't had the chance to sit down with [Getty Museum director Michael Brand] yet. He's the point person on all this. I think he's doing a very good job in an understandably difficult situation. I want to learn about it as fast as possible. He's going to be the lead negotiator with Italy. As with so many of us, Italy has been central to my own artistic and aesthetic development. I'm confident that we’re going to find a fair and equitable way to move ahead.

MAN: And the same with Greece and Turkey (which is saber-rattling on antiquities issues, though not at the Getty)?

JW: Yes.

MAN: One of the issues that the Getty has faced for years is that the Meier in Brentwood, and the Villa in Malibu are physically disconnected from Los Angeles. The Getty has never felt like a part of the fabric of the city. I know you don't have any Los Angeles ties, but is this something you've thought about and is it something that you need to address?

JW: It's certainly something I've thought about. Specific answers… No, that would be presumptuous. But one of the attractions of coming here in the abstract sense is that there's no question that Los Angeles and New York, in 30 different ways in my opinion, are the two most dynamic incubators of contemporary art and the visual arts and how they deal with the rest of the country.

Another tremendous plus in my mind is that the visual arts institutions in this city are led by an absolutely terrific group of people that I’ve known for a long time. Look at the institutions here. One of the things that quite excites me is that you've got the whole spectrum, from the Hammer, to MOCA; from historic moments in time, to institutions that do it all. How the Getty fits in — I haven't got the answer yet, but the dialogue that is possible is one that the Getty can learn a lot from.

MAN: In recent years, in the Munitz years really, the Museum's pace of acquisitions has slowed. You've written a great deal (most recently in Whose Muse?) about how important it is for museums to actively collect. Do you want the Museum to return to its previous acquisitive ways?

JW: I'm not going to get too specific because I need to know more about the priorities of the different collecting areas. Collecting is absolutely essential to the metabolism of an institution like this. And that's not just collecting art, but collecting collections, and to go beyond that to collecting people. You need to keep growing.

The whole question is to focus on what's going to be the most intelligent way to use the means this institution has to make Los Angeles more cosmopolitan. One of the very appealing things about the Getty to me is that its collecting opportunities are really quite open. We were not left with an iron-clad restriction, so the opportunity is there to make the most of changing times — both in terms of the legality of acquisitions and in the cost and the importance of different cultures for both Los Angeles and the nation.

MAN: Given that Los Angeles is one of the two big producers of contemporary art in the United States and one of the four biggest producers in the world (to say nothing of LA's other creative industries), what should the Getty Trust’s relationship to contemporary art be?

JW: Contemporary art, contemporary culture is the water we swim in. The Getty needs to be very sensitive to that. Does that automatically mean we start competing with these other institutions in town that are collecting contemporary so brilliantly? I would argue not at all. I would say that the icons from St. Catherine's is the kind of thing that is essential to have happen in a metropolitan area where young artists are figuring out how to express their own culture. Show me any great artist and usually they will say, 'Here are the moments in the past I used to, in effect, learn how to deal with the present.' History doesn't have to be revoked from the contemporary. To me it's quite the opposite.