Curator Tapped by Art School

Bruce Jenkins, the film scholar who served as the curator of the Harvard Film Archive (HFA) until it became part of the Harvard College Library system in February, will join the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) as its dean of undergraduate studies in the fall.

In 1999, Jenkins became the first Cavell curator of the archive, which suffered from a history of financial difficulties since its founding in 1979, under the auspices of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts and the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES). Members of the film community at Harvard and beyond criticized the shift of the archive to the library’s control—announced by Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby in a January 26 letter—as potentially disastrous for its vast collection of original prints.

In his new position at the world-class art school, Jenkins will oversee 23 departments, about 2,500 students and more than 600 faculty, about 150 of whom are full-time, according to Carol Becker, the SAIC’s dean of faculty and senior executive vice president for academic affairs. In addition to its degree-granting programs, the SAIC runs the Gene Siskel Film Center and a “databank” of independent video.

Jenkins will be one of two deans, the other overseeing graduate studies, who reports directly to Becker. Though he will be a tenured member of the SAIC’s faculty, he said time constraints would prevent him from teaching any courses in the coming term. In his five years at Harvard, Jenkins served as a senior lecturer and taught in VES.

Beginning in September, Jenkins said he will be charged with overseeing the art school’s constantly evolving curriculum.

“I’m very excited because it brings together a whole range of activities and pursuits that I’ve been involved in for many years,” Jenkins said. “It’s virtually the entire gamut of contemporary art pursuits...For me what’s rather remarkable is I will be involved 24/7 with working with faculty and students who are committed to a full-bodied pursuit of art in all its configurations.”

Colleagues said Jenkins would face a different set of challenges than he did at the HFA, but most thought his skills were well suited to the SAIC’s undergraduate deanship.

“He’s landed on his feet and is in many ways better off,” said Middlebury College professor Ted S. Perry, who serves on the HFA’s advisory committee. “I think there’s more support there [than there was at Harvard], more opportunity for him to make the kind of contribution that he’s capable of making.

“It’s a great move for him,” Perry added. “A great move for the Art Institute and a great loss for Harvard.”

Perry e-mailed Kirby in February to complain about the transfer in the archive’s administration, calling it “a travesty.”

James Cuno, who served as the director of the Harvard University Art Museums until December 2002 and who will assume responsibilities as director and president of the Art Institute of Chicago starting in September, said the art school has a fundamentally different mission than Harvard.

“[The SAIC is] deeply committed to the practice and education of artists,” Cuno said when reached at his London home. “It’s not questioned...whereas in a big university, the visual arts always have to compete with other modes of inquiry.”

The SAIC and the Art Institute of Chicago are “in a corporate relationship” but have separate administrations, according to Becker. As such, Cuno was not directly involved in Jenkins’ hiring, but said he was consulted and recommended his former and future colleague.

“It was a very different job of course, so I couldn’t comment on how he might be as a dean, but I had very high regard for him as a curator of film,” Cuno said.

Kirkland House Master Tom C. Conley, a professor of Romance languages and literatures who teaches courses on film, said Jenkins’ time at the HFA’s helm would equip him well for the tasks awaiting in Chicago.

“Bruce was administrating film and film people when he was here, and now he’ll be administering films and film students,” Conley said. “So I don’t think there’s going to be a world of difference between one position and the other.”

Jenkins cited his longtime experience with the film community of the Midwest as one factor in his decision to go to the SAIC.

“I’m familiar with Chicago, having been a grad student at Northwestern in the mid-to-late ’70s,” he said. “I used to literally leave class and go down to [the SAIC] and play hooky.”

Jenkins said he was unable to comment on his time at Harvard or the circumstances of his departure.

FINDING A CURATOR

In September, VES will debut an undergraduate concentration option in film studies, and the University’s film scholars are readying themselves for a potential graduate program in the field.

As this critical semester for the study of cinema approaches, Assistant Professor of English and of VES J.D. Connor ’92 said the search for a new archive curator was “progressing nicely,” with the hope of filling the position by the summer.

Germanic Languages and Literatures Department Chair Eric Rentschler, who has played a key role in the recent development of Harvard’s film studies program, said the “harmonious” five-person search committee had already seen one candidate for interviews and tours and expected to see two more in the near future.

Connor, a Crimson editor, said the committee faced a lack of suitable candidates for the position.

“It’s not a big pool that we’re drawing from,” he said.

Connor said the committee included him, Rentschler, VES Chair and Kenan Professor of English Marjorie Garber, Visiting Lecturer in VES Ross McElwee and Suit Librarian of the Fine Arts Library Katharine Martinez, who has controlled the archive since it was removed from Jenkins’ leadership in February.

Hooker Professor of the Visual Arts Alfred Guzzetti, a filmmaker and longtime VES professor who resigned from his position on Harvard’s informal committee on film studies earlier in the semester in protest of the move, said he had declined to serve on the curatorial search committee for similar reasons.

“Having been so upset at the way Bruce was muscled out, it was clear that I would not be a helpful addition to the search committee,” Guzzetti said. “[The archive transfer] was an administrative move made with the near-certain consciousness that it would make a difficult situation for the incumbent and would risk provoking the incumbent’s resignation, which it did.”

At the time, the move drew criticism from scholars who said it was made unilaterally and without sufficient concern for the unique needs and functions of the film collection.

—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.