What the MFA’s delayed Basquiat show tells us about the future of art exhibitions

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The pandemic has changed, well it seems almost everything. This includes the arts and the way the audience can engage with the culture. These week, WBUR art reporters examine how various forms of art are made and displayed in Boston. First stop, the Museum of Fine Arts to find out how COVID-19 is affecting what visitors will see on its walls for the foreseeable future.


One recent afternoon, the MFA’s temporary showroom known as the Gund Gallery was filled with wooden travel boxes of various sizes. Nestled in a half-open box was a medium-sized refrigerator full of graffiti. Liz Munsell explained the importance of the device.

“So this is an incredibly dynamic refrigerator called ‘Fun Fridge’ that has tags from everyone from Fab 5 Freddy to KooL KooR to Lady Pink and Basquiat,” she said through her mask.

Munsell is co-curator of the long postponed and soon to be opened exhibition “Writing the future: Basquiat and the hip-hop generation. “She referred to the living canvases on Jean-Michel Basquiat’s gallery walls paired with works by street artists he was associated with at the Fun Gallery in New York City in the 1980s.

Liz Munsell, curator for contemporary art at the MFA, stands next to “Untitled (Fun Fridge)” by Jean ‑ Michel Basquiat. (Jesse Costa / WBUR)

This new show is the first to highlight Basquiat’s relationship with his co-workers and people of color from that era. To tell their story, Munsell and co-curator Greg Tate raised 120 international loans.

“Artists in this exhibition – artists associated with graffiti – were collected a lot in Europe in the 1980s and not overly appreciated here in their home country,” she said. “That is why we had to work a lot with private collectors, especially in Europe, to put together the number of works that are in the gallery today.”

But 90% of the loaned paintings and objects are in the gallery much longer than originally expected. Like the refrigerator, the work arrived in March before the highly anticipated April opening.

“We were ready to start with our design set, our programs, our opening launch with many of the artists who came from out of town,” recalls Munsell, “and then the world changed before our eyes.”

"Leather jacket" tagged by Jean Michel-Basquiat.  (Jesse Costa / WBUR)
“Leather jacket” tagged by Jean Michel-Basquiat. (Jesse Costa / WBUR)

The MFA was closed on March 13th along with the international network of museums, lenders and freight forwarders who move art around the globe. “Everything that mattered had already come through our doors from overseas,” Munsell said.

According to Head Registrar Jill Kennedy-Kernohan, only three of the loaned works did not make it into the MFA for the exhibition due to export backlogs in France. It is your responsibility to organize the logistics and safe transportation of credits to and from the MFA. Prior to the pandemic, couriers physically accompanied valuable works of art every step of the way into Boston until they were housed and safe in the gallery.

“You know, couriers used to go on trucks – they’re no longer allowed on trucks,” said Kennedy-Kernohan.

Kennedy-Kernohan is now using a virtual courier. “It feels like we have a robot or something in the room,” she mused, “but it worked pretty well.”

Senior Registrar Jill Kennedy-Kernohan on a remote zoom check-in call with the exhibition's project manager, Valentine Lescar, to make sure the pieces were in the in
Head Registrar Jill Kennedy-Kernohan on a remote zoom check-in conversation with the exhibition’s project manager, Valentine Lescar, to ensure that the pieces in the “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” exhibition are working properly installed. (Jesse Costa / WBUR)

Sounds high-tech, but it is actually an iPad that is attached to a tripod with castors at eye level. Kennedy-Kernohan rolled it around the gallery while speaking to human couriers in places like Los Angeles and the Netherlands during the installation on Zoom.

“They watch us unpack,” she said. “You can consult with the restorer about the condition report and then watch us put it on the walls. So it’s a whole new world for registrars right now. “

The entire museum ecosystem has been changed. “At the moment, a lot is in the air for all institutions trying to figure out what the budgets will allow,” said Kennedy-Kernohan.

The MFA and institutions she works with mix up the schedules for a long list of postponed shows and ask lenders if they’re ready to renew contracts. Some exhibitions will be postponed to 2023, ’24 and ’25.

Meredith Montague, Head of Textile Preservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston "Decorated suit" by Keith Haring and LA2 worn by Madonna in 1984 as seen on the video screen.  (Jesse Costa / WBUR)
Meredith Montague, Director of Textile Preservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, installs Keith Haring’s Decorated Suit and LA2 worn by Madonna in 1984 as shown on the video screen. (Jesse Costa / WBUR)

The MFA isn’t the only one juggling countless moving parts with disrupted schedules and logistical chaos.

“All institutions lend and receive loans – to one degree or another,” explained Christine Anagnos. She is the executive director of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). “Some do it more often than others, but it has affected every single institution, no matter how big or how small.”

The AAMD represents more than 220 museums in the United States, Canada and Mexico, all of which move in this new reality. Anagnos said the way museums have organized and run large, expensive loan shows for decades has been turned upside down.

“Museums are looking for innovative ways to ensure that work can get from A to B safely and that their employees are safe. It will be slow for a while, ”Anagnos predicted. “The blockbuster isn’t dead. Loan shows aren’t dead. Traveling exhibitions aren’t dead. It’s just going to be a little different.”

Every arts sector is suffering from the pandemic, Anagnos said, and museums struggling financially after months without an audience and ticket receipts need to find innovative, practical solutions. She pointed to one that is right under her own roofs.

“I think museums look inward at their own collections,” she said, “which are so big in some areas, and [they] will look for new ways to present information to the audience. “

When asked if he thinks the MFA will move in the direction of more self-developed exhibitions, Matthew Teitelbaum, director replied: “Yes, I do.” The encyclopedic museum’s collection includes nearly 500,000 works of art and objects spanning centuries, and the public has not seen them for a long time. While it is the MFA’s responsibility to share these, at this point it is also cheaper and more efficient to create exhibitions using what you already have.

“You don’t have to travel halfway around the world to choose a work of art,” he said. “On the other hand – I’ll keep saying it – you still have to create a compelling narrative, and you have to be convinced that you have the objects to tell this story.”

Teitelbaum said that the stories must also be relevant to our time in order to address the much-needed visitors of today.

"Hollywood Africans" by Jean-Michel Basquiat.  (Jesse Costa / WBUR)
“Hollywood Africans” by Jean-Michel Basquiat. (Jesse Costa / WBUR)

Ambitious, large, expensive exhibitions based on loans and relationships take years to plan. They were the backbone of the art institutions. And they were moneymakers. With reduced visitor capacity due to the pandemic, Teitelbaum said many partnerships and decisions about future exhibitions are being questioned as museums seek to recover from laying off staff (More than 100 full-time and part-time positions at the MFA were cut) and at the same time save ailing budgets and profits.

“I can’t underestimate the number of shows that are canceled and postponed as people try to work out their schedules in relation to the audience they think they will have. And we all work with a very limited audience and we all try to find out what expenses we can logically take on. Everyone is pretty careful. “

What is lost if you don’t look outside, Teitelbaum pointed out to a sense of globality. “How do you approach geography problems that create identity when you can’t move?” He asked. “It is very difficult to be on Zoom call after Zoom call with curators from other institutions or directors from other institutions and not stand in the galleries with them and watch art with them, compare notes with them and develop programs without them this closeness. “

The almost complete front gallery space of "Writing the future: Basquiat and the hip-hop generation" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  (Jesse Costa / WBUR)
The almost complete front gallery space of “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (Jesse Costa / WBUR)

But right now, the MFA has high hopes that audiences will be drawn back for the redesigned Basquiat show, which will finally open – now for seven months instead of four – on October 18.

In order to create more distance, the design team tore down walls in the gallery and the curatorial team reinterpreted the wall text of the exhibition after the uprisings of racial justice across the country. The artists featured on the show faced a lot of racial discrimination “in terms of the fact that the art world is overwhelmingly white and quite elitist – which, of course, it still is,” Munsell said. “I think their story of resilience is so young. Artists struggling to get through this moment can serve as an example.”

After Basquiat, two shows will open: the postponed exhibition of works by Monet pulled from the holdings of the MFA for November together with “Cezanne: In and out of time“With seven loans – six that have never been seen in the museum. Some shows are in the works for early 2021, including two that are being developed within the walls of the museum.

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