The Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago has ended its yearlong streak of operating without a chief curator.
Michael Darling, Seattle Art Museum’s former Mary Shirley curator of modern and contemporary art, joined the MCA staff July 12 as its James W. Alsdorf chief curator, and brings with him a fresh organizational approach to the MCA’s vast collection. Darling replaces Elizabeth Smith, who left as chief curator in August 2009, and for whom he worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, several years ago.
On an especially hot Friday over a glass of ice water in the museum’s cafe, Darling, outfitted in a seersucker suit, sat down to chat about his first two weeks on the job. Among the 42-year-old California native’s accomplishments: gallery hopping in 90-degree weather and landing a house in Evanston with his wife and kids.
Q: We last spoke in April, when your appointment was announced. What have you been doing leading up to this transition?
A: Since we talked last, the “Kurt” (Cobain) show opened (at Seattle Art Museum) in May, and that was a lot of fun and has been getting a lot of attention and a lot of visitors and doing everything that we were hoping it could do. The other last project that I had there was this focus series called SAM Next, and it was a show on a young Belgian painter called Cris Brodahl. That opened on July 2 and about a week later, I got on a plane and came here.
Q: When can we expect to first see your mark on the MCA?
A: I think as early as October, maybe in the form of some permanent collection displays on a smaller scale. Lucky for me, (museum director) Madeleine (Grynsztejn) had left a lot of open spots for the schedule going forward. It’s created a bit of chaos in terms of not knowing exactly what’s coming, but it’s given me a lot of freedom to come and plug some of those holes with ideas that might reflect my angle on things. The thing that I’m primarily concentrating on right now is just trying to learn the collection, so I’m going through the list object by object and kind of looking for patterns, unusual quirks and strengths and come up with, hopefully, a battery of different exhibition ideas that I could start rolling out in different ways and give people a sense of my approach — but also finding things that haven’t been shown before or shown in a particular way before.
Q: Have you started to see some patterns you might like to explore?
A: I mean, I’m only up to the Ds right now (laughs). But I did notice, even at that point, that we have, for instance, a lot of work by someone like Chris Burden and another artist that I’m blanking on right now, I just noticed and marked “solo show?” with a question mark. I had some general assumptions about the collection when I came in — that it was very strong in what you might call a more conceptual approach to photography, and I’m seeing that kind of varying itself out in different ways. I’m seeing a very progressive approach to sculpture, and of course I also knew that we had this surrealist collection — which is sort of a quirky thing for a contemporary art museum to have, but I’m really excited about exploring that more, especially as it relates to younger artists and what they’re doing and what they’re interested in. I really think a lot of younger, active practicing artists are kind of rediscovering it these days, so it doesn’t seem as irrelevant and as much of an anomaly as you might think.
Q: When we last spoke, you said that up to that point, you familiarized yourself with Chicago artists primarily via international art fairs. Where do you stand now as far as getting to know our art communities?
A: I don’t think I know it by neighborhood and pockets yet. Last Saturday I went around to see some galleries and only batted about .500 because a lot of people were closed for the summer. I got to see a few and say hi to some people, but I think that might kick in a little bit more heavily in September, when people are back in action.
Q: You’ve said that as far as eras in art go, you’re comfortable with everything from the 1940s on up to “10 minutes ago.” Do you have a favorite?
A: I think there’s still a lot of work to be done in the era of late-’50s into mid-’60s, and I’ve got an exhibition idea that I’m starting to develop that looks at that period. But the other thing that I’m absolutely committed to and interested in are these younger artists that maybe aren’t just right out of school, but have been working for a couple years and doing really mature work, but other museums haven’t given them shows yet, they don’t have catalogs yet. That kind of segment of the art world is something that I’d like to focus a lot of attention on: the MCA giving those people their first museum shows, giving them their first catalogs, and helping to kind of write those histories. I think that’s an area where we can make a big impact on the art world in particular and endear ourselves to those artists at a point in their career when they really can use a boost, where maybe people are looking for a museum to give the stamp of approval on them before they’re launched onto the next level. That kind of advocacy for artists is something that I’m really excited about.
Q: Do you have anyone in particular in mind?
A: William J. O’Brien, for instance, is an artist that’s kind of come up through Chicago, came through the 12×12 program, is starting to really get some international attention.
Q: The MCA’s building can be awkward for exhibiting: Larger shows are either split in two downstairs or enormously spread out upstairs. How do you envision exhibiting?
A: That is something that I’m looking at very carefully and in a way trying to bring a certain kind of predictability to the way that shows happen here — so that then more unpredictable things can happen in that structure. I’m almost looking at things in a more modular way, in order primarily to counteract what you’ve experienced and start to build a track record in certain areas with this idea of post-emerging artists. … I think it would help kind of streamline things; I think it would help to build our identity in a clear way. I’m getting to understand the building and the collection, and the curators are trying to start to understand some of those patterns that we can create for people.
