National Portrait Gallery director charms the Arts Club

Kim Sajet at the Arts Club, May 4, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The crowd may not have been as big as it was last month when the National Gallery of Art director came, but remarks by the director of the National Portrait Gallery Wednesday night at the Arts Club seemed deeper, more personal, and drew louder laughter. 

Kim Sajet with Dana Tai Soon Burgess at the Arts Club, May 4, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

"I'm fine with people coming in the museum and walking out more confused" than when they came in, said Kim Sajet, NPG director and the first woman to hold the position.

"We are a history museum as well as an art museum," she said, and "I'm just dangerous enough to know a little bit about a lot of things."

She continued: "I believe what museums do is important."

Many new museum directors discover they are "floating down the river" without staff support which takes some time to win over, but Dr. Sajet is proud of her staff.

The National Portrait Gallery is the only portrait gallery in the U.S. she reminded the audience, and it has tried "some crazy things," but the crazies seem to draw the biggest crowds.  

For three days the NPG hosted, more or less on a lark, an exhibition during the heyday of "Google glasses."  

"People lined up for hours to see it," Dr. Sajet said. 

"We've made mistakes; we've learned a lot." 

The Portrait Gallery "used to be non-threatening" with lots of "dead white guys.  What was not to love?" she asked.

NPG's mantra is to collect portraits of persons (until 2001, "really dead" persons, like for more than 10 years) who have made a great impact on American history and culture. 

Right now an artist is working on the Trump portraits, and the Gallery has 15 works under commission. 

The museum might approach a major contemporary artist, she said, and ask:  "Who would you want to do?" 

"I don't know why museums have to be so boring; you know, 'don't touch.'"

"I always tell the curators, you'll get brownie points if you can make someone cry."

"If you live here, you try to stay away from all these tourists, face it."

Competition on the National Mall for space is stiff with two new museums vying for land:  the  women's history museum and the U.S. Latino museum, and hold it!  There's a new kid coming to the block,  an Asian-American museum, Dr. Sajet said.

Answering a question from a member of the audience, she is "so grateful we are not on the Mall.  We are surrounded by fantastic restaurants" but on the Mall, it's nothing but a "food wasteland."

When she arrived in 2013, NPG attendance was one million; now attendance is 2.3 million.

"We may not have the largest attendance" among museums, "but we're the most revisited museum," she said. (Unclear if she meant museums in D.C. or the U.S., probably the former.) 

This year's Outwin Boochever competition which NPG holds once every three years, chose 42 finalists from  2,774 entries, Dr. Sajet said. The winner, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, received $25,000.

It's not easy determining who belongs in the collection.

Take Katy Perry, "a good example," Dr. Sajet said.

At the time Ms. Perry was selected for NPG inclusion, "she was the second highest performing artist after Michael Jackson. If Rosemary Clooney got in, why not Katy Perry?"

(Katy Perry has her own solo shot at NPG; Rosemary Clooney is pictured with 17 others.)

        Will Cotton (b. 1965) , Cupcake Katy, 2010, National Portrait Gallery

Philippe Halsman (1906-1979), Rodgers and Hammerstein, 1954, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Jane Halsman Bello, © Philippe Halsman Archive. Rosemary Clooney is pictured the second from left, back row.

When someone dies, "we put out their portrait"  like Aretha Franklin's (died August 16, 2018), when "the line was out the door the next day."

Visitors left purple flowers at Prince's portrait, ashes for Kobe Bryant on the museum's steps, and filled "two books" (of remembrances?) for John McCain.

"People want to be with other people" at these sad times. 

Answering an audience question, Dr. Sajet said NPG has about 40 digital portraits in its collection.

She was born in Nigeria to Dutch parents, holds citizenship in the Netherlands, and grew up in Australia. She loves reading and is probably one of those "readers for life." She's been in the U.S. 25 years.

"My mother is someone I've always admired." Dr. Sajet has a severely disabled brother.

As a youth, she "fell in love with the history of art." 

"A moment" she experienced at the Whitney Museum of American Art was when she saw a painting by Edward Hopper of an outdoor cafe with a sad clown which helped steer her life.

Edward Hopper, Soir Bleu, 1914, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Moderating her presentation was Dana Tai Soon Burgess, Arts Club member, choreographer-in-residence for the Smithsonian, and "poet laureate of national dance" (as identified by a club member).

From May 17 - 19, 2022, NPG will host his newest work, El Muro [The Wall], created by inspiration drawn from the Outwin-Boochever contest. It's 30 minutes of modern dance with 10 performers and live music by Martin Zarzar, formerly of Pink Martini. 

Free to see, but May 17 is "sold out."  Go here to reserve.

Patricialesli@gmail.com

National Gallery of Art director woos the Arts Club

Kaywin Feldman at the Arts Club, April 6, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Kaywin Feldman sat on stage at the Arts Club this month with moderator and Club member, Dana Tai Soon Burgess, and talked about her background and vision for the National Gallery of Art. Later, she answered questions from the 50 or so who paid to come and hear the "new" (three years) Gallery director.  

Ms. Feldman started her career as a director at a museum when she was only 28, after being on staff of a Fresno, California museum for just a year. 

Although 52 percent of museum directors today are women, she said there are still none "at the top except for me." 

Kaywin Feldman with Dana Tai Soon Burgess at the Arts Club, April 6, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Her dad was in the U.S. Coast Guard and they moved around a bit.  When Ms. Feldman was born in Boston, he was working on his Ph.D.  Although she mentioned him several times in her talk, she scarcely made reference to  her mother, a homemaker. 

Ms. Feldman's "role model," was Mary Tyler Moore for, after all, who else was there to admire professionally in her growing up years?

She was unsure about a college major and it took several international trips before she found her "calling" on Crete and Knossos which led to her major in Greek and Roman architecture.

Kaywin Feldman at the Arts Club, April 6, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

In her younger years, the Scrovegni Chapel by Giotto in Padua, Italy brought her to tears:  "I cried, I was so moved" when she saw it, she said. "I was walking on air" to "experience the feeling of wonder.  It's bigger than we are as human beings. We are part of the shared humanity." 

She praised Andrew Mellon who started NGA with his fortune but who died before the Gallery opened in 1941. His son, Paul, took up his father's leadership role and worked towards making NGA "a living institution." 

Now, NGA is diligently working to reassert "national" in its name and image and more closely match U.S.  demographics. NGA's collection is made up overwhelmingly of male artists: 92 percent and of that percentage, 98 percent are white.

The new exhibition of historic and contemporary pieces by black artists (Afro-Atlantic Histories) is  "joyful, celebratory, challenging, and difficult;" a history "of so many different people."

The audience interrupted her talk several times with applause.  

The show does not focus explicitly on slavery, Ms. Feldman noted, but it's part of the story told on the walls. (Writer's note:  The depth and scope of Histories is surprising; much more than I ever expected with 130 works from several continents spanning the 17th century to the present.)

Answering a question from an audience member (none of the questions which appeared pre-screened), Ms. Feldman said the East Building (which has been undergoing renovations since 2019) is set to open in July and then the West Building will close for renovations.

All the skylights in the East are being replaced, the first time since 1978, she said. 

It's not been easy working as part of the federal government and having to wait for years for budgets to be approved. 

As a director in her 20s, she relied a lot on instincts which with her experience, still help her today.

Museums are "moral institutions" which should strive "to do good things and do no harm." 

Climate change was acknowledged:  When it comes to heating and cooling buildings, art museums are "wasteful....I need to do more to reduce [our] carbon footprint." Staff travel contributes to climate change. 

Because of Russia's attack on Ukraine, Ms. Feldman resigned her position at the Hermitage to some criticisms, she said. [She had been a member of the State Hermitage Museum International Advisory Board.] 

She has European colleagues who are "very afraid we may no longer be able to work with Russian colleagues." 

Like the Baltimore Museum of Art with an exhibit now up which was curated by museum guards, Ms. Feldman has been communicating with NGA's security guards, too, some of whom have worked at the Gallery for 30 to 40 years. She finds the conversations "challenging, joyful, exciting." 

The NGA guards are "so proud that their story is being told now" as part of the African Dispora. 

She talked about the Benin Bronzes and deaccessioning the only Benin piece at NGA. The process has taken 2.5 years and is "still in our basement." She feels "very strongly [these] works should be returned." 

A British military officer involved in the Benin's "looting" only died in 1970,  bringing the acts closer to  home. 

She said art can change lives with its transformative powers.  It changed hers.

Dana Tai Soon Burgess is the Smithsonian's choreographer-in-residence. 

patricialesli@gmail.com