 
 
it welcome to inside
today we're chatting with tennis courts
executive director of the Cordoba
sculpture park and museum the corner the
sculpture park and museum is the largest
part of its kind in New England Inc
under sink 30 acres
northwestern Boston dennis is generously
agreed to share some his experience with
us
like to thank you dennis for joining us
thank you for having me appreciate the
invitation
so let's talk about cordoba talk about
the the physical plant and its gets
quite extraordinary
30 acres sixty works it is it's both the
sculpture park and museum so that's
where contemporary art institution
the thirty acres hold sculptures from
ass for modern art up to made last week
and then we have galleries interior
spaces that fulfill all the things you'd
expect in a more contemporary art
institution have
and the landscape is quintessentially
New England it's located just down the
road from Walden Pond
so has his beautiful this doesn't use in
a pond in forests and I it's a quite
stunning environment for Contemporary
Art
and and your guests come and
do the experience the Park first today
they tend to experience the
contemporary that's a great question
we've been wrestling with actually and
you know they come in now they drive in
and sir park in the park so typically
they've come through a portion of the
Park first
nay often will transit that in the
summer and make their way around
obviously in the dead of winter they're
less likely to spend their time
freezing outside to be inside for the
program but we had about a hundred
twenty thousand visitors a year
and I'll the vast majority of those I
think no es first as a sculpture park in
that second early as a museum that has
galleries as well
so the sculpture park itself the thirty
acres in a sense
also functions as your entryway as your
introduction into the environment into
thanking into the meditation
visitors will undertake hearts not a
fact how you
program the the museum and how you treat
the the whole institution I think you
know they're
opportunity is there to make something
really special happen because white
you can do outside in a park with
contemporary is quite different from
what you can do
in a gallery setting I think people arms
so much more open to the kind of
experience as a contemporary demands
in a park setting and they are in a
gallery in saree thinking a lot about
how
those two programs complement each other
and push each other forward
and so for a lot of visitors their first
experience with sculptures outdoors many
many folks will not visited apart for
and they'll get there
and that is a whole different world from
the kind of experience are used to in a
any Museum at any time well and and what
I said fine so interesting about
outdoor spaces in which are resides is
the
interactivity that occurs not only
between the works
and the viewer where the experiencer but
also between the environment
and the work the environment in the
viewer in
ache in a conventional museum you're
walking into a space that is
a where people are speaking in hushed
tones you have the work
on the wall I if you're lucky it's
isolated very often there's a lot of
interfering noise from other works that
are there in close proximity
and you are given
an experience that is quite cost right
now that's not possible
in an outdoor experience where you don't
control what actually happens to the to
the user
that's correct i mean in in those are
very truest sense of the word that's a
self-directed experience out there
and I think the real challenge for
Sculpture Park Circle different
situations often get viewers to
I serve look with new eyes it's what
every museum tries to do it when I spent
a long time
I trying to do is a designer museums
before I became a director
trying to get people to let go of those
preconceptions what they're going to see
anything
the real beauty of the sculpture park is
because they're outside because there
are no hushed tones because their kids
can run around
their dog can come with them if they
want I'm
they're much more open to those kinds of
experiences outdoors and they are
in and so it's are real advantage that
what they see first is that park
the curatorial approach also needs to be
adjusted for the fact that you're
dealing with an environment the changes
so people who visit the spring are going
to have a different experience than
people who visit in the fall
course going to and it's going to be a
lot less that's within the control
the the curator because the environment
is not something
that the curator control absolutely not
but the artist to the artists do and can
and that's the beauty of it i think is
that they're so
interested in that outdoor life an
object
and in their work seen in those kinds of
contacts so you know I have yet to run
across a nurse who hasn't thought very
carefully about
working outdoors in the way to cite the
work in the the seasonality other than
what it will look like with snow
and sometimes they don't know and to
them it's a great experiment as well
and I think one of the things that we
are trying to do very carefully to part
ways to be an artist centric
institutions were very
thoughtful about inviting artists in to
do things they couldn't do anywhere else
now they can't do this in a gallery they
can do this in a traditional institution
and so
they can do something that is very
unique it's a very unusual opportunity
for a lot artists we work with an often
where the first
time they've worked outdoors in a really
serious way or in a particular way that
they're going to work with us
they're very thoughtful about even our
curator's lose some control I think the
RS
survive are very excited to have that
opportunity in front of them
so forgive my lack of knowledge abut a
how many of the pieces or were all of
them cited by the actual
artists themselves it's a mix we have a
collection
over outdoor sculpture not a huge
collection
in fact we can talk about that but we
intensely now are very picky about what
we choose to collect
so above and beyond how we might be
choosy for our regular a surf
photography and painting Colossians
we have a number works that are borrowed
so from the Artis
from the galleries from collectors I and
then we have prolly about a third of the
work in the park is commission so it's
site-specific your site relation and
in that is meant to be a specific place
for specific duration
into their arses working here and
helping choose that site most typically
so
it's a real mix in the park the the real
focus
for the court about is to be an
institution that's about the future
appts culture and wheres culture is
going and truly be a contemporary art
institution and so much
what you see when you go business
culture part particularly in the United
States
is a parking lot for the history and
culture so its orbit double challenge I
think to be both the sculpture park
and a true contemporary institution
we're pushing boundaries in 11 is Rs
come in and do something
new and it has a a life for you know we
made only
Commission projects for a year for two
years maybe three at the very
outside what we do but it's really quite
quick and then we turn it over and give
another artist chance
and you just wrote an article on on a.m.
different perspectives and how part
should be shaped and how the experience
should be shaped
comment a bit on on what you wrote the
article I was responding to was a
returning sir describe in a return to
the primacy of the object that something
was lost in these kinds a participatory
experiences
and really to me arm you know my
response and what I wrote for slate was
really this idea that you
one can have one without the other that
ultimately you are is an experience
buchanan object is an experienced a very
personal
relationship to an object museums can't
afford either
to be tone deaf to what culture is doing
right now in right now
your culture is very much you know about
looking at yourself and self curate in
your life in
your facebook post your tweets answer
how you present yourself to the world in
Rs are responding to that
and also in some ways arm positing are
putting forward work that is a pushback
to all that it's a lot of the work is
very social ants relational static sets
looking into the though a reserve are
they don't see my car to a lot of a
general audience
one of the things I find to be very
interesting is the idea of the museum
and its suppliers is a key as a catalyst
and the works itself as as
your paint but many I'll
museum directors CE see this is it
differently how do you see the craft
I love managing the museum presenting
art a.m. a being
an orchestrator how would you place
from your perspective the terms and
being an executor actor
an organization at the DeCordova that's
really is a question I think
for us in particular i cant core speak
to others and
and how they're passionate but for the
court over in particular really think my
role there is to be an enabler
an accomplice if you will to a talented
group of people
who need to be pushed to take risks
coconspirator a coconspirator absolutely
within pounds I un-indicted though I
would point out a
unindicted coconspirator I'm but you
know were really there to push the
boundaries and if the staff is not an
able to do that
by having it made okay to make mistakes
with institution to
trying to innovate and take some risks
some others will pay out some them or
fail
ought we were not going to ever succeed
if we only stick to what we know is
gonna work
has a contemporary institution in
particular I think we're going to fail
and I'll so we're really pushing hard to
try and break new ground in a lot at it
right now to systematically
but operationally and programmatically
in what we're doing
so an example I might use is we
like many museums are being our heads
against the wall love the public school
systems
as schools have moved towards testiness
they have I'll have limited funds for
busing in all kinds a
is your reasons the museum's I had a
harder and harder time engaging with the
public schools in a meaningful way
and instead oster lamenting that state
and trying to throw more the same
programs at this problem
we decided to I essentially abolish all
of our
survey existing school outreach programs
and start something new it's what we
decided to do is we we
essentially partnered with the local
preschool we decide to try and catch
these families and these kids before
they get in the public schools
essentially to turn this problem on its
head
innovating try something new and so
we've launched the first embedded
preschool at a contemporary art
institution in the US
and so these are kids we have sixty kids
were on campus all day every day
five days a week throughout the school
year and their partners with the artists
and the staff at the museum
inserted advancing this idea that art
matters and that environment matters in
learning and so we're
be it's both a lovely rainbows and
unicorns can experiment in that it
sounds charmaine
but has some real meet behind in that we
are studying these kids were in
restoring them over a decade
with some party partners Lesley
University and project zero harbored
to essentially track whether you can
demonstrate that these kids have a
better take great on cultural pursuits
me do they signed up for elective are
two there the more in tune with music
are they
I engage with the kind of cultural
options they have in their family has
ten years down the road the kids who
didn't come to this country program and
went to the same public schools
and I think that is a really interesting
experiment for a museum to undertake
will it succeed in I believe it will but
it could
panel and that's probably going to be OK
to in some really were trying to push
these bounds
and make a right to to innovate I find
your description to be so interesting
because in a sense what you've done p
is you scrape the canvas you have
developed
this approach you created this work
and it's not working at a certain point
so you go and you scrape the canvas
and you start again your your reusing
certain elements that what you've done
in the past but you have created a whole
new work
and you create a whole new partnerships
whole new model
and you know that that second work that
you've done
you painted over top of your your old
work might also
not work during this great the canvas
adapter
who's paying for is paying for our
donors who are big believers
in the fact that the institution has a
role love
presenting this comes to innovation both
within the world
in this critical project the schools and
within the roll over its
life in the museum world and so there's
a lot of interest in this project from
both ends
so they're coconspirators to your
cockles I can dissolve them to BK
coconspirators as well yes it's an
ever-growing conspiracy and a corner
and have the conspiracy crudely score a
birthday a
funders and so on that's right well up
to a point I think
your institutions have to be willing to
find affected partners
right and so we were not getting where
we needed to get with the local
public school systems which are
fantastic schools i mean this is not the
other
you know an issue messages has wonderful
schools
I'll but we weren't seeing the kind the
connection we needed to seize
institution
to address a problem that I think on
these hymns have share concern about
which is where will our future audiences
come from there's
a great deal data that shows if if
children and families are exposed to a
cultural
early they will not become like to
purchase pens so if we're being locked
out the public schools
as institutions and within across the
field
as you know it's our responsibility to
find a solution to that problem
experiment in a min try and find another
path and so
you know I'm proud to be a part of
trying to find their path whether or not
our particular answer will be
the path we all end up on his museums
twenty years now I don't know I
certainly hope it will be
but were I think doing important work in
trying to help
advance the field museum's even as it's
all in a very particular promise to
courthouse were trying to think very
strategically
across the field even as we as an
institution are doing things are mean
for
for us in our mission so you're you
talked about
one approach to education for children
talk about your
education and public programming for
adults the
programs that we have as let me back up
and say
you know for adults we have some really
reengineer what cordoba has offered
we r have offered to resign very similar
slate or you find a lock into birds
tutions
we have over the last few years brought
in some new educators
who are thinking about what's next in
museum education and so while
I like many museums we use official
thinking strategies which is that
tried-and-true
twenty year plus method for engaging
audiences
I think there's a valid question yes
which is what snacks there
that can't be the and a museum education
and in and in 1978
and there will be nothing else
developing the next 100 years somebody
will come up with what is next to
to help grow from BTS and Patterson just
it's not a replacement the growth from
it
and so with our adult programs and with
are
us a regular visitation programs we're
making is very customized to visit our
needs
very artist centric and so these are
providing ways for visitors to engage
directly with the artists themselves so
providing behind-the-scenes artist
insulation to ours we have an artist on
the park for two or three weeks
installing a huge project we don't just
want them their work in a vacuum we're
bringing visitors to them and having the
visitors interact with that artist's
having them talk through the visitors
what their processes how they live is an
artist
what this project means to them and what
i mean sauces institution
and so allowing the user to connect with
the artist they are in a very direct in
different way
I'm in each other programs are offering
to adults are very specific to those
groups need so whether it's us for
pioneering in trenton new methods in
touch to rain
for you serve sight impaired visitors I
do in Alzheimer's tours doing enough
in tours for you school kids they're all
very uniquely tailored to those
audiences needs and we're really trying
to be responsive to the group for
partnering with
rather than offer its overrode menu
insane choose
choose from the Chinese menu its you
know what are you is
looking for as a a partner with us what
we provide to you that specific
are contemporary artists involved in
shaping these programs as well as
developing their art
for the site or is this a situation
where the carriers have their role the
artists have their role and
and their near the twain shall meet it
depends on the artist summer they are is
a very taken with those
ideas and those models and they are very
active participants are even serve all
injure themselves
up to be participants another artist
would be happy
to never have to deal with the public
and so we try to be very respectful all
that regardless of what they are his
position is
but there's always a way to find to
connect the audience to what the artists
are doing what they're talking about so
we we tried through navigate that
case by case and be very a specific in
serve our approach in
will be used to being a not huge
institution is we can be very
customizing in very serve responsive to
audience
into artist and the specific situation
we find ourselves in
and that's I think the beauty of the
court it's just big enough they can do
some really important
innovative work but small enough that we
don't have a lot of the bureaucracy and
a lot of the
assertive inertia issues you have with
the huge institutions we can be pretty
nimble on the stuff
and that's where I think what museums
will be looking at next is gonna come
from
Younan era where every audience member
expect to be able to curate their own
experience curate their life
customize was offered to them go and
seek what they want
institutions are just offer up a
standardized menu are gonna I think
hair very poorly I think ultimately
institutions that can be
responsive in nimble and meet people
halfway
in the best sense of that term will be
the ones that are gonna succeed so
you're not going to become a pander an
organization that is
that is whiplash back and forth trying
to
rush to to satisfy each
your individual audience members on the
other hand you're not going to become a
distant and standoffish institution
where the audience doesn't matter you
present were you present making a common
like it or lump it
grope we will strike the perfect balance
things out now the oldest Saturday
I very much so and I think you know the
to not pander ya to have to have the
conference have your curatorial
ambitions your territorial standards and
so as an institution
what we show what we collect I continues
has elevated continues to elevate from
where the court has
sir historically been known to exist in
the art world
very ambitious and what were showin I in
the kinds a
presentation the products we're
partnering on I'm
example I might use is a were the first
organization to co
produce a project with Madison Square
Garden New York this gigantic early
gander installation that was in New York
this past summer
is right this minute as we're speaking
mean reinstall the DeCordova an entirely
new
a site-specific responsive then you will
live there for years old live through
four seasons
unlike in New York was justice a summer
installation
it's a huge undertaking it's a %uh very
ambitious Wenger Charlie
if that standard and the quality is
there in everything we do
meeting on its halfway doesn't imply any
kind of watering down
that for quality love our mission it's
how can you provide point2 engagement
for those audiences
let them understand that work in a more
meaningful way for them
even as you're pushing the boundaries of
how challenge in some that workers and
contemporary art if it's done well
should
be challenging do you ever undertake
a project that some people really hate
yes we've done that I'm not sure I would
do it every day
but we have undertaken project that I
think some components our audience have
not been excited about
and in fact I would say as a director if
I like everything we're doing some
things wrong even
for me personally this is what I've
often said my board so the ball to rise
things the
you don't like the I personally am not
it would not be my cup of tea
but i've been convinced by maker
tutorial staff that for
the reasons that they can articulate and
be very clear about that this is mean
fall within the context of the sweep in
our history
sweep bouts culture right now about
where sculptures going
if if as an institution we can push the
boundaries person buttons
we're not doing something like losing
your own including my own
and I think it would be a sad day when
you visit a museum or I like everything
I you happy place you're probably visit
paid a visit
I would think every think you know it's
it's a kind of thing where
if as is institution weekend healthy
dialogue about what
art is and we're always questions on our
own decisions
and having to explain each other what
we're doing and I think it leads to a
really
on pervasive sensitive optimism and
excitement for audiences
Anya if they sense that the museum's
board they're gonna be bored
if they sense it's institution is
vibrant and having a dialogue with art
in with itself I think they're going to
really enjoy themselves makes me want to
go
right out and and is it is the DeCordova
sculpture garden museum
that is quite thank you so much for
sharing your experience with us
and thank you for your insights thank
you to pleasure
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