How the Art Community Thrives

The role of an art museum is more than what meets the eye. When we talk about art, it can also expand to the performing art form and beyond. Yes, it is good to feel a limitless quality of what art can do and who it can reach. One of the art museums in the Washington D.C. area that has that expansive quality is The Kreeger Museum. Nestled in the northwest area of D.C., where the winding roads and carefully landscaped gardens meet, the Kreeger gravitates to locals and tourists who seek a serene space for various art forms within the city.

Photo by Frank Hallam Day.

While supporting the contemporary art scene through art shows, talks, and events constitute the norm of an art museum’s role, it is refreshing for the visitors to also experience a variety of programming that enhances its visual arts component. Helen Chason, the director of the Kreeger, graciously shared insights into the museum's profound engagement with the local community, highlighting how these endeavors contribute to the enrichment of visual and performing arts within the Washington D.C. region.

Creative Selectivity

Photo by Nicholas Moreland Photography.

The craft of selecting artists is a process that takes time and research. Art curation is a way of carefully presenting new and returning visitors with a vision of what the art museum represents and what it stands for. It's a process that goes beyond showcasing popular talent. Contemporary emerging talent is always present but it takes a keen eye to select it based on the season, your audience, your messaging/themes, and the other type of programming you may have going on. 

At the Kreeger, it is important to immerse the visitor in art but also through music and workshops. These creative endeavors stimulate the artistic senses of sound, movement, and visuals. 

Helen Chason touches on the importance of supporting local talent:

To shine a light on the amazing visual and performing artists practicing in our city and provide them with gallery space for showing their work, we developed The Collaborative in 2021. The Collaborative is an exhibition program that supports DC-based artists and strengthens our relationships with other non-profit arts organizations in DC. We are honored to champion the work of these artists and provide many of them the opportunity to present their work in a museum for the first time.

It’s important to highlight local talent within museums, especially since Washington D.C. can be considered such a transient city, where people come to work for a few years and then move on to other places. Nurturing the talent that is already working within the Metro Area can only foster more of an inclusive cultural experience and create room for more talent to emerge, flourish, and maintain itself in creative careers in this area within the visual and performing arts fields.

Chason states:

Jazz at The Kreeger, also developed in 2021, is a monthly concert series at the Museum that features DC-based performing artists. Working in collaboration with Elijah Jamal Balbed, we are honored to present this jazz series to support and spotlight the wealth of musical talent in our metropolitan area.

Aside from art, the jazz community has been an intrinsic part of the Kreeger’s programming. Jazz expands how people can enjoy the art experience through music by honoring diverse talent through another art form. This opportunity creates an atmosphere of cultural history and community as it all blends in together to honor the talent of this area. 

Community Goals

Photo by Anna Savino.

The Kreeger Museum uses the art space as a place the community can visit to enjoy and learn more about Washington D.C.’s overall cultural scene. It immerses the visitor in the art experience by asking them to be part of it and engage with local musicians, artists, and overall local talent.

It is commendable for an art space to know its audience and what they want to obtain from visiting a space. It could be to have a nice time, mingle, or learn more about local art and music. It is all valid, but it is also a matter of picking their brain based on how they respond to the activities you are presenting and what they might be interested in as a parallel activity in their daily lives. Say someone is interested in art, could they also be interested in learning to make art or listening to music while viewing it? This is a reflection of what we can see in the Kreeger’s programming. 

Chason expands on this thought:

We have a wonderful and simple mission – to share art, architecture, and music. Working with partners and artists across the city we strive to develop workshops, exhibitions, performances, and talks that appeal to all audiences. Our grounds provide a fabulous space for outdoor installations and performances. With new art spaces opening up across the city, there is more opportunity for all to experience work in new venues. The more we work together to promote our artists, the richer our community will be. We are headed in the right direction.

Presenting art as a lifestyle is an exciting pursuit, especially making art more approachable, where people feel there’s a space for them no matter their background. There is room for all to feel welcome, especially if they feel their other interests similar to art are welcomed too, like workshops, music, and even yoga.

Final Musings

Photo by Vivian Marie Doering.

The important part of maintaining a contemporary art space is to be open to multiple possibilities. We live in a world where art has become more accessible to people and it is a good feeling to feel included in this beautiful and in-depth world that is art.

Spaces like the Kreeger are taking this mission one step further by learning more about the people who visit and those who live nearby when offering programming that engages their interest and keeps them coming back to learn more about art history and local talent while immersing as part of a visual and performing art community.

The Art of Curation is Evolving

As the art world slowly opens up to hosting exhibits and devising innovative ways to make art accessible and safe amid a global pandemic, many art lovers are breathing a sigh of relief. The National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington D.C. is illustrating how art lovers may get their fix in the era of COVID-19. Earlier this year, they reopened the lower gallery area in the West Building to present Degas at the Opera, an exhibition that attracted all the eager art fans in the D.C. Metro area. 

Figure 1. Mollie Berger Salah, curatorial assistant at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., working behind the scenes in the Division of Prints and Drawings.

Mollie Berger Salah, curatorial assistant at the NGA in the Division of Prints and Drawings, sheds light into how her work for the National Gallery has and continues to adapt to the new ways of planning exhibitions and exhibiting art. If you love art, then you’re like me and have likely wondered how exhibits are created and how they come to be so memorable, especially now, and this interview tackles that curiosity.

There is a level of mystery to the behind-the-scenes work at an art exhibit, especially one at one of the most prominent art institutions like NGA. It is Berger Salah’s devoted expertise that guides the artwork selection, space planning, ways of connectivity with the public, and the flow of its presentation that make your visit to the National Gallery beyond worthwhile. 

Figure 2. Gregorio De Ferrari Genoese, 1647 - 1726, Saint Michael and the Rebel Angels, c. 1682, pen and brown ink with brown wash, heightened with white gouache, over traces of black chalk on blue laid paper sheet, National Gallery of Art, Elizabeth White Fund 2018.165.4

1. How long have you been working at NGA?

I have worked at the National Gallery of Art in the Division of Prints and Drawings since July 2014, but I have been working in museums since I was 16. My first museum job was at the Farnsworth Art Museum gift shop in Rockland, Maine. I learned so much there, especially customer service, which comes in handy when I am answering a question from the public or directing a visitor in the museum.

2. Can you describe your role and how you work with current/upcoming exhibits at NGA?

As curatorial assistant for the Division of Prints and Drawings, I get to do a little bit of everything. From researching the collection, including new acquisitions, to tracking the progress of curatorial projects, my to-do list varies day by day. 

For the past couple years I’ve been assisting the Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings with his upcoming exhibition, A Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa 1600-1750, which opens next year. I tracked the checklist of artworks included in the exhibition, corresponded with our co-curators in Italy, and helped find images for the publication. We were two months away from the exhibition opening at the NGA, when we needed to close due to COVID-19. It was disappointing to postpone the exhibition our team worked so tirelessly to execute, but we are all relieved the show will be on view next September.

Of course, everything has changed for all of us since the pandemic began. I never thought I would be working from home, but teleworking allowed me to focus on other projects. Digital content, in particular, has been a new experience for me. I led visitors (virtually, of course) through our Mark Rothko galleries and wrote a post highlighting DC artists for the recently enacted DC Natives Day, which celebrates folks born and raised in DC. 

Figure 3. Berthe Morisot French, 1841 - 1895 The Artist's Sister, Edma, with Her Daughter, Jeanne, 1872 watercolor over graphite on laid paper overall, National Gallery or Art, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection 1970.17.160

3. What are the most enjoyable parts of your job?

Definitely working on exhibitions. Since works on paper are light sensitive, we closely monitor how often they are exposed to light sources. We rely on special exhibitions, which are only open for a few months, to showcase our incredible collection of prints, drawings, and illustrated books. With a collection of over 110,000 works of art on paper, there is a lot to choose from.

4. What advice do you have for someone who wants to work at a museum or gallery as a curator?

My first piece of advice is a practical one: understand and be comfortable with technology. I guarantee you will need to use spreadsheets, project management tools, and databases in a curatorial position. Proficiency, or at least familiarity, with these systems could set you apart from other candidates. There are also loads of free online tutorials, so there are opportunities for you to learn these skills. I use all of these programs, practically daily, and I believe they will only become more common as arts institutions move away from paper files, and towards digital systems.

Secondly, I believe it is imperative that anyone working in a curatorial capacity be able to articulate why their project is important, why it matters. This can be challenging to articulate, but as museums grapple with their role in the broader cultural landscape, I believe museum leadership will ask this question and curators should be able to answer.