Q&A: AIC curator Lisa Dorin, part two

Continuing from this morning...

MAN: Do you approach putting these shows together differently because you work at an encyclopedic institution?

Lisa Dorin: That's an important consideration, first for practical reasons - in order to get to our 'Focus' gallery, visitors have to pass through Chinese, Japanese, Asian ceramics and sculpture, and in our own galleries you walk by de Kooning, Mitchell [right], Hesse, Pollock and so on even before you even get to the 'Focus' shows.  Sometimes we try to tailor aspects of our permanent collection to address our 'Focus' shows, but most often we let the shows stand on their own. No matter what we put back there, I can't help think that there is a kind of dialogue between the collection and the shows. When artists come here for a site visit they tend to spend a lot of time with our museum's collection and sometimes choose to incorporate their responses into their 'Focus' shows. I think it's possible for artists to be awestruck or slightly intimidated by the context, especially if they've never been here before. But I think it ends up being a positive experience for them in the end. It maybe a challenge that encourages them to think about their own work differently. As curators, we definitely can't help but think about the encyclopedic context when planning shows, but I don't think we allow it to limit our choices.

MAN: I'm guessing that the institutional considerations that go along with being at an encyclopedic museum rather than a kunsthalle really changes what you can do too.

LD: It impacts it a lot. We have institutional constraints that have to do with the number of people who come through the museum every day, that have to do with museum policies in terms of conservation and safety for objects in the permanent collection that kunsthalles don't have to deal with.

It sounds glib but, our registrars are typically used to working with dead artists, so when an artist invariably makes last minute changes, or when a month before the show opens, the work is still not finished, and they are trying to arrange shipments, it is challenging for them. Another example would be the William Pope.L exhibition [left] we just did. His initial proposal was a peanut butter drawing on the wall of the gallery. It's something he's done in other institutions, but never in an institution such as ours - it's always been more in alternative-spaces or in kunsthalles. This was a challenge that I thought I might be able to overcome, but it turned out we just couldn't do it for a number of reasons: Health and safety was the primary one, people with peanut allergies being in crowded galleries with gallons of exposed peanut butter on the walls. We did not have the ability to completely make the museum safe for all of our visitors, particularly for children.

We couldn't overcome that, and we had to go back to the artist and work with him to find another proposal that we could do. So my job is often that of negotiator between the institution and the artist.

MAN: Do you go out of your way to work with artists engaging the present or the surrounding context of your city, or does that just happen?

LD: I don't know that I seek it out, but it seems to have happened now a couple times, with Jana Gunstheimer and now the next show with Mario Ybarra Jr. opening at the end of May. He's doing a new installation specifically for the 'Focus' show, and it will be engaging directly with the context of Chicago but bringing it back to his home context of Los Angeles, which is a theme in his work. He's making connections between the two cities but, that happened a little bit by accident. I originally invited Mario because I thought we wouldn't have any gallery space as we prepare to move into our new building. He was an artist I knew could be creative about doing a project in a different kind of context, but it turns out we do have gallery space and he's doing a gallery show.