Talk about boundaries, and lack thereof.
The other day I ran across this article in yesterday’s News-Leader about the Springfield Art Museum in Missouri (at left).
The community is invited to share feedback about the search for a new Springfield Art Museum director at tonight’s regular museum board of directors meeting….Community members — particularly local artists — have expressed interest in what qualities a new director will have and in how the museum will evolve…Arts advocate Jeanie Morris says she and other community members have written letters about what they hope to see in a new director….
She wants to see the museum evolve into something more like an “art center”…””What a wonderful opportunity for the community to help craft the future of our art museum”…
…Many of us feel that now it’s important for the museum to collaborate and partner up with the many wonderful arts organizations in our community. We also feel it is important to do things to make the museum inviting and exciting to the community. It should be alive with people enjoying the art, learning, shopping and dining. It should be a go to place for many! Our area art educators should feel welcome to bring in their students. We would love to see workshops from nationally known artists, art talks, slide shows. The auditorium should be used by theater groups and other organizations!”
Now, it’s true that this is a city-owned museum, and that it is NOT accredited by the American Association of Museums. Nor are we talking about the Met. And no museum — or its director — should be unapproachable. But choosing a director with so much public input, voiced at a public meeting, will raise expectations about that poor director’s consultations with the public in the future. He/she will be expected to consult, even on matters — such as curatorial and exhibition decisions — that should not be voted upon. Will anything be the purview of the director?
Who’d want that job?
But wait, it got worse. A subsequent article, published Friday, said attendees demanded to be heard vocally after the board asked them to make their comments on Post-It notes. Well, trustees raised expectations — they had to suffer the consequences.
A facilitator from the city’s human resources department said verbal comments were not scheduled that evening, but the floor was opened when Judith Fowler, a local artist, said: “As a board member, I’d like to hear what they have to say.”
Morris was the first to speak.
With several pages of notes in hand, Morris gave myriad suggestions to the board.
She also voiced some disappointment that the number of director candidates had been narrowed to three from 80 applicants.
“I think we should cast a wider net,” she said, adding that the new director should focus on marketing and outreach in the community.
Wider than 80? Or was she simply upset that the board narrowed the choice before they invited people to speak up?
This has been handled very badly by the board. Hiring a CEO is always the responsibility of the board. I pity the person who takes the job. It’s hard to restore boundaries once they’ve been breached.
This is a small museum, but it seems to me that some much larger museums are treading too close to boundaries as they experiment with “access.”