Lowry Talks Art In Emerson Hall

Director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Glenn D. Lowry, recently named the fourth most powerful figure in the art world by ArtReview magazine, engaged a diverse panel of art experts in an animated discussion on contemporary art and museums in an event sponsored by the Humanities Center.

Over 50 gathered in Emerson Hall last night to hear Lowry, joined by Director of Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Jill Medvedow and Rosenblatt Professor of Modern Art Benjamin Buchloh, examine the direction of contemporary art.

The two-hour panel, moderated by Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities Homi K. Bhabha, featured an extended discourse between the guests.

Lowry, who has been director of MoMA for 11 years, spoke about the increasingly “democratic” nature of contemporary art as evidenced by the rise in the quantity of artwork produced and the change in the character of public consumption.

“There is no single human being who is able to see enough of what is being made to have any idea what is going on. You can pretend to know...but no one really does,” Lowry said. He said that despite the onslaught of art available for the public, art institutions should not feel obligated to interpret it all.

“The museum doesn’t aspire to a global reading of modern or contemporary art,” Lowry said. “It is an institution based on an pedagogical idea.”

According to Lowry, who studied Islamic art at the graduate school in the early eighties, the museum’s role is to filter through the sheer quantity of art produced and educate the public through its selections.

Buchloh offered an opposing viewpoint, noting that museums have become unclear as to their purpose because of the wild diversity of contemporary art.

“Some rooms in MoMA, pardon my criticism...are an accumulation, not a collection,” Buchloh said.

Medvedow brought the discussion from the abstract to the concrete by speaking about how Boston’s new ICA is dealing with many of the current challenges caused by the current prevalence of artists and their work.

“I’m trying to make contemporary art relevant [to Boston]. This is a city that has been unwelcoming, and doesn’t have a tradition of embracing contemporary art,” she said. “We’re putting all of our bets on the art of the moment,”

Ultimately, Lowry said, the museum should be driven by content and not by audience.

“If museums want to survive as cultural institutions, they are going to have to argue that the experience they provide is fundamentally different. The moment they become driven by their audience,” Lowry said. “They forsake the ground they have, to demonstrate why certain works are more significant, more important, more beautiful.”

—Staff writer Alexander B. Fabry can be reached at fabry@fas.harvard.edu.