It is fair to call the Toledo Museum of Art one of the most influential institutions in our region. Its reach has encompassed both art creation and the appreciation of the end product — it played a major role in the birth of the Glass Art movement in 1962; today it plays host to high-profile exhibits featuring the likes of Botero, Manet and Stella.
At the helm of this world-renowned gem is Irish-born director Brian Kennedy, who is passionately focused on visual literacy — “[teaching] people how to see better, by engaging with works of art.” The TMA’s 400,000 annual visitors can credit his vision for many of the museum’s recent coups. We talked with Kennedy about the TMA’s role in the art community, the future of the Toledo Area Artists Show, and the science of balancing major exhibitions.
You’ve been here for two years now. What do you think it is about Toledo — the city, the people — that helps make a venerable museum thrive?
Well, thanks for the compliment. I hope, indeed, it’s thriving. The Toledo Museum of Art has had such a long and strong history. So, to be celebrating the centennial of free admission, to have had such a frequency of audience — we have averaged 400,000 people a year for many, many years, despite that the population of the region has declined somewhat — shows an affection and a support that directly relates to the quality of the collection and the quality of the buildings and, I think, the friendliness of the staff and the pride that everyone has of a collection of this order being here.
What do you see as the Museum’s role within the local art community? What is the connection like with the local artists?
The Toledo Museum of Art is quite a challenge for local artists to have, in one respect; an incredible opportunity, in another. Few local artists would have such ease of access into such a collection of this order in many cities of this size. However, because the museum was structured to acquire the very best artists, a local artist not only needs to be the best local artist, but the best Ohio artist, the best American artist and one of the best artists in the world. So, that’s in terms of collecting. I think where the museum has long had a strength is in support from the communities through community gallery exhibitions, through the Toledo Area Artist Exhibition, which is in its, I think, 94th year. We have this involvement in showing the work of local artists and that’s pretty well all the time currently. That’s a very particular relationship, a special one, but as I say, an opportunity and a challenging one.
While we are on the subject of the Toledo Area Artists show, this year the show is not going to be in the Canaday Gallery, where it has been exhibited before. There are also some rumors and concern that it may be canceled in the future. What is the status and what does the museum expect of that show in the future?
I haven’t heard those rumors, because, for start, they’re not true. There has been a tradition over time of showing the exhibition in larger galleries and in community galleries. We took a decision last year to show a tighter show, focusing on work that we thought was of best standard and to encourage other artists to apply and participate who hadn’t been involved. And we gave, for the very first time, one of the winning artists a show. The Leslie Adams show is currently in Gallery 18. So, we are going to work this through as to what’ is the best way that we can support the exhibition of the local artists. But, the exhibition is planned into the coming year. And, I can say to you, the short list was made this week [for this year’s show], judging hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people.
In the future can we expect it back in the Canaday gallery? Is it a matter of the gallery being booked? Or do you just see the TAA in the future [being held] in the smaller galleries?
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When’s the last time, before last year, you saw it in the Canaday? The question of where it is shown is a question for the museum and that, of course, not only depends on what we are doing, but what way we want to do it. I don’t know what we’ll do in the future. We may go back in the Canaday Gallery, we may not. We may go somewhere else in the Museum. But, for now, we are committed to the show and we have been for 94 years, so I think that’s pretty good.
What art event outside of the TMA plays a pivotal role in the Toledo art scene?
I think there’s lots of activity. I speak more to the role, particularly, that the Arts Commission plays. I mean, one can have temporary shows and the development of galleries, and that’s emerging [here]. It’s never been more obvious to people; the potential of Toledo in this regard during the wonderful week we had at The Glass Conference, when there were pop up galleries everywhere and it felt like another city. I would go to the more general, rather than the specific: to have an Arts Commission this vibrant; to have a public sculpture program, to have initiatives, whether its on the local benches or on the buses, is terribly important. The Arts Commission of Greater Toledo is the only one in a major city that doesn’t get support from its local city and that’s rather significant. The Toledo Museum of Art can say that, because we don’t either and we are the only major cultural institution that doesn’t get a [tax] levy. So, with independence, I can say, the local arts scene should be best supported by the local people and is indeed represented through the local taxes, if they wish. The support largely comes from Columbus [state funding], as you know.
A lot of local artists have learned their craft through the museum’s classes. How is the TMA working to maintain that learning for the next generation of local artists?
Well, that’s an interesting question. And we have given it a lot of thought. The museum exists as a collection of objects, which are the product of the work of artists. So, the primary purpose of the Museum is to give access to the works of art and to information about them. To that extent it’s also important to know how they are made. But the tendency of museums in many American cities, especially Midwestern cities, in the early decades of the twentieth century was to have a school of art as well as a museum, which was really to provide that access to studio art that wasn’t current elsewhere.
Over the many decades art education tended to be certified, where many museums don’t provide certified programs. I think the greater merit and thinking is about how to advantage those colleges and universities that are in the certified education sector to provide art education and adult education and evening hours art education and to capitalize on their studio art premises to do that. That’s not to say that we are not going to be continuing classes; we have a whole roster of classes every quarter, but I’m more interested in thinking about how do we fulfill our institutional objective. If we want to teach people about how to see better, by engaging with works of art, which is our primary purpose, then it really behooves us to start to develop courses and online education that teaches people how to engage with works of art. So, we’re at the product end, the end-result end here; that’s the nature of a museum. Sometimes the traditional and expected role— that we are at the front end of the making —is to mistake the nature of our institution. So we are giving that a lot of thought and it will lead to some changes, no doubt.
Can we expect to see those changes in the near future?
Well, if you think about what I just said, the focus would be a tendency to have more education on the teaching of
visual literacy and, given that resources are finite, if that’s our primary purpose, then we would tend to focus our resources there.
Since you’ve been here, the TMA has been able to organize a string of high-profile shows — Botero, Manet, Stella, the Egyptian Exhibition. What’s the key to keeping those back-to-back, sometimes even overlapping and having that sort of variety. having that balance, like, right now, between Manet and Made in Hollywood?
It really is a question of the way one prefers to manage organizations. I have always considered it important to have a plan; if you know where you are going, it is easier to get there. We’ve planned our exhibition program out into 2015 and it’s always important, in my view, to have at least two years of exhibitions programed, so you can really invest in them, try to connect them, try to develop themes that interest the audience and, particularly, leverage them for art education. So, at times, it’s helpful to combine shows.
One of the basic principles that we have announced is that we will add value to what we do and we put our strategic plan up on our website very early on. So, adding value, like Made in Hollywood, talking about photography, the period of 1920-1960, and Manet, growing up in the era of photography, but still striving to establish himself as a painter. So, how would painting change if photography was able to represent people better? That’s the sort of thematic connection that helps.
Color Ignited, which we had in the summer, was about the development of color in studio art glass, which, of course, began in Toledo in 1962. To pair that with Jules Olitski was to take one of the great color expressionists of American art from the 60s and to show how he too explored color in his painting. As we move forward, we will be trying to make connections like that and I’m particularly keen that we balance our programs by addressing world art and global art, but also more recent art with older art. So, that will be a theme.
You’ve also tried some events to draw the younger crowd in the last two years, such as the Kentucky Derby Party and the Trombone Shorty show at the Peristyle. How do you plan to continue to appease and draw that demographic?
Museums everywhere are putting a lot of effort into renewing their generations. We’ve been really surprised at half the people that came to our summer exhibitions were under the age of 35 and we get older audiences at some other exhibitions. The 24-45 group is really becoming quite strong and the recent events have become well-supported. There is a sort of mix, from the baby tours we started and the focus on your brain being a sponge [while you are] under the age of five, right through to people suffering from Alzheimer’s and all the way through the middle, [and the goal is] to try to find ways to engage audiences. The wine tastings and the concerts, the parties, but, more than anything, the programs that seek to educate around what it is to be visually literate today.
Do you feel the people fully appreciate having a world-class museum?
I think that’s relative. The more one travels and sees other museums, the more one realizes this is an incredible museum. To a degree the city is incredibly proud of this museum or to have a museum like this, but, as with other things in life, not everybody feels a need to participate in it actively. That’s the responsibility that we have: to make sure it’s available, that we make it clear that it’s free -— many people don’t know that the admission is free, even still. And yet, we get 400,000 visitors a year, so our [attendance] percentage of the metropolitan population is significantly higher than any other museum in the country, except the Smithsonian, which is tourist driven.
