by donald dusinberre imartsyfartsy@gmail.com
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been printing a sort of “discussion” about whether the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville (MOCA) is properly supporting the work of local artists. So far, we’ve heard from some of our local artists who have expressed a surprising variety of concerns and opinions.
Now, after months of conjecture and opinion, it’s time to work our way upriver to the source. I spoke with Debbie Broder, the Museum Director and George Kinghorn, the Chief Curator. If we are to understand the issue at hand with any accuracy, then we must hear their point of view.
Clearly, the crux of the issue lies within the actual mission of the museum. We must at least attempt to learn what it really is and stop the conjecture. It doesn’t mean you have to agree. If any reader insists on staying at odds with MOCA, then reading these words will likely do nothing to change your mind, but I hope we can all try to consider the issue as objectively as possible.
Broder: We should start from the premise of. “What is the Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art?” First of all, we’re a museum, and in that respect, what we do is bring to our community art at museum-quality levels. We bring artists of regional, national, and even international status. So that is really the stated purpose of the museum.
We try to work closely in the community with other venues that are designed for the purpose of presenting the local artists, emerging artists. There are several venues like that. The Ponte Vedra Cultural Center is a perfect example of that, and certain galleries in town and so forth, but we do recognize the artistry in our community; the artists who are dedicating their lives to creating art. We, as a museum, feel it’s important to incorporate their work into our fabric. We always dedicate one gallery, which is on the fifth floor, to the works of local artists, and generally they are an art educator who is also a practicing artist. And that’s always a changing gallery, which we’ve dedicated to a local artist.
In addition, we frequently have an exhibition, usually once a year, which reaches a broader group of local artists, called First Coast Portfolio. The artists submit their work and those works [in the show] are selected by the curatorial, and they’re represented in a full-blown exhibition. The other thing that we do is take an artist that we feel is really breaking through and evolving to a greater artistic level. We’ll give them an exhibition in a gallery on the second or third floor.
Kinghorn: In each of our galleries, we’re focused on exhibiting artists, primarily in the feature galleries, who have an established exhibition history. As a museum, we have criteria, and we’re working with mid-career regional, national and internationally known artists. Many of the local artists [who have exhibited here] also have an established exhibition history and their craft is fine-tuned. The fifth floor is often a gallery for artists who don’t have an established exhibition history, meaning they’re just getting their career started. We feel like we’ve jumpstarted the opportunities for them.
Just like you’d see in any city- Los Angeles, Chicago- these museums are devoted to exhibiting and collecting artists of national and international reputation and bringing new art forms to the community. So it’s a very different focus than an arts center or an alternative art space. Alternative art spaces are often non-profit, they’re artist-run, and artists can feel free to go in and take a lot of risk. They may not have a cohesive body of work, but it’s kind of a testing ground. We expect that when artists exhibit at the museum they already have a very confident and cohesive body of work.
Broder: I think it’s key that we’re a museum, and I think that defines the purpose of our art.
Kinghorn: One of the things that we’re doing is organizing, in conjunction with our series of drawing exhibitions, a show called Making Marks, with all local drawers, people who are using drawing as a medium and a creative process. We’re focusing on a number of local artists, most likely ten or twelve, that will be featured on the third floor.
MOCA exhibits the art of our time, we focus on works created since 1960. The Cummer is a lovely survey museum of art, and they collect and exhibit art from throughout the ages. For a town of Jacksonville’s size, one would expect to have two institutions with very different missions, but aligned in terms of bringing art to the community. The difference between MOCA and a gallery is that we are non-profit, and we do not sell works of art here at all. That is not our focus when we choose works of art, and it’s not driven by a commercial desire to sell.
I think what we’re encountering is a small minority of artists, most likely younger artists, who don’t understand the function of a museum and may not have the same credentials and/or body of work of the same quality of many of the local artists who have exhibited here.
One of the problems we have in this community that the museum has addressed head-on previously is the need for an alternative art space for artists. We actually flew people down from Atlanta who have successfully opened those things and given them the tools to band together to create an alternative art space. So we have done more than many museums in terms of giving artists the tools to mobilize and to organize these things. We’ve also done, on two occasions, professional development workshops for artists to teach them how to market their works. I think we’ve done quite a lot for giving local artists the tools to understand how the commercial gallery realm works and how the museum realm works.
Broder: Our first priority is to present art of regional, national and international quality. Probably our second commitment to the community is to provide education. Those are our two main focuses, but we also respect and highly regard our artists in this community. We, to the best of our ability, provide exhibitions that include them. We are very tightly woven to the artist community.
Kinghorn: We have provided artists opportunities to get their name out there. We have, on occasion, provided portfolio reviews to be reviewed by professionals. We have offered professional development opportunities for artists here.
Broder: It seems unusual for a community to give us a mission that the museum hadn’t adopted for itself. Even from a funding point of view- the city, the cultural council of Jacksonville- their expectation is for us to behave and act as a museum. So that really is our primary mission, not only to ourselves but to the people who are key funders and represent us as a public institution. So we need to not only be true to ourselves but to the people who have put their support behind us.
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