Copyright The Boston Globe
Each member of this new crop of leaders faces challenges and opportunities unique to their organization. But they share a common vision for an open and supportive museum culture in Boston, even as the region’s art groups navigate a period of increased uncertainty marked by economic instability and pressure to embrace a sanitized version of American history and culture. Abrams, 47, who came to Boston after a roughly 15-year stint at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, said she’d been told Boston’s arts community was supportive before she arrived. “But it wasn’t real until I’d been here,” said Abrams, who led the Denver museum for six years. “They show up to each other’s events, congratulate each other on milestones, and reach out and welcome. It has been so far beyond what I expected.” Ganz Blythe, who arrived at Harvard after 15 years at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, in Providence, said she’s been impressed with the breadth of cultural organizations in the Boston area. “There’s sort of like one type of every type of institution,” said Ganz Blythe, 52, who led the RISD Museum as interim director through the pandemic. “There’s not a lot of duplication, which means that everybody sort of feels like they have their space.” Some of the newcomers have met individually for lunch, and they’ve met socially as a group at least once. Perhaps most significant, they’ve also joined a standing Zoom call every other week for area museum leaders that includes the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Peggy Fogelman and Paul Ha, who leads the List Visual Arts Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We really have a lot to learn from each other,” said Terjanian, 56, who worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, for more than a decade before arriving at the MFA in early 2024. “I think they all agree that there’s a lot we can do together for Boston and the Greater Boston area.” They’re still settling in, but Terjanian said areas for potential collaboration include coordinating exhibitions and schedules so openings don’t crowd one another. “Is there something we can do where our respective work adds to one another, rather than looking like it’s independent and divergent?” asked Terjanian, who was raised in Strasbourg, France. Ganz Blythe said that cross-institutional collaborations will likely become increasingly common, as art-market prices continue to soar and museums rely on financial models where restricted funds can make them less nimble. “We all have ambitions that far exceed our means,” she said. “I think we’ll start to see collections that are co-acquired, or works of art that perhaps live part of their time in one institution and part of their time in another.” She added that museums could “benefit from working in different registers.” There are “ways that we could be thinking about our resources and collections that are mutually reinforcing,” she said. “We have amazing conservation labs that can do incredible research that other institutions can’t do. They have other resources that we don’t have.” The new leaders are all focused on expanding access to their respective institutions as well. At the ICA, which has sought to establish deep ties with the local arts community, Abrams is introducing the “ICA Artist Pass,” which will provide one year of free general admission to Massachusetts-based artists. “My hope is that [the ICA will] live in the world as a home away from home for artists of this city and state,” she said. “They are not only deeply welcome, [but] they are among our most core audiences.” Meanwhile, the Harvard museums have seen visitor numbers more than double since they began offering free admission to all in 2023. Ganz Blythe, who was a conservation intern at the Harvard museums when she was a student at Wellesley College, said the free admission program has transformed the once-quiet university museums. “One thing academic art museums often struggle with is that you have this dual mission to be academic and public,” she said. “But I think it’s most compelling when it’s mutually reinforcing and they don’t work in contradiction with one another. So the student becomes the educator — things are always operating in a larger context.” All three museums were largely unaffected by cuts to federal arts funding earlier this year. Nevertheless, the Trump administration’s decision to defund certain groups as part of a broader push for his triumphalist vision of American history has left many culture workers deeply shaken. Terjanian, who became a US citizen last year, said that it’s critical in these unsettled times for the region’s flagship museum to stay true to its mission. “It’s very important that we continue to stay committed to this vision of being a museum for all that tells sometimes ambiguous, complex narratives, and features the voices of artists,” he said. “What is at stake is our ability to live up to what we were built for.” Abrams added that navigating these uncertain cultural waters “is something every museum director is grappling with right now.” “We are facing grave threats to our independence, to our mission, to our funding, to everything that allows us to open our doors and to exist,” she said. She added that instead of simply defending their practices, museums should be explicit about their work and how it helps make “the city a healthy, safe, vibrant place to be.” “Why do we exist?” she asked. “Imagination, creative thinking, access to new ideas ... all these things that are essential to a functioning broader community.” “I think that’s what we have to put forward and kind of shout from the rooftop.”
