New Leadership at the Albright-Knox
By Elizabeth Licata
From the moment he enters the room, it’s easy to see that Louis Grachos is a hands-on guy. His warm greeting implies he’s known the interviewer for twenty years, though it is a first encounter. He radiates enthusiasm and energy. He is eager to talk about his history as director of SITES Santa Fe (since 1996)—and even more animated about the exciting future he sees for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, as he takes over its directorship from Douglas Schultz.
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Louis Grachos hopes to expand the
Albright-Knox's collaborations with other area arts organizations. Photo by Jim Bush. |
Grachos has always been that kind of director.
SITES—an artspace with global renown
At SITES, Grachos was deeply involved with every curatorial project—fifty during his tenure there—particularly the international biennials that put SITES on the art world map. These huge, installation-based surveys were guest-curated by such heavy-hitters as Francesco Bonami and David Hickey, and always involved huge budgets—over a million for the 2001 edition—as well as long rosters of established and emerging cutting-edge contemporary artists. In 2001, Hickey worked with twenty-eight artists in his search for “a beautiful world,” including a pair of architects who basically rebuilt the SITES entrance.
In 1999, guest curator Rosa Martinez included thirty artists in her show, Looking for a Place. The complex installations of this sprawling exhibition took place not only in the SITES large warehouse space, but also at significant locales throughout the Santa Fe area, including a graveyard, a parking garage, a railway station, a public park, the San Hdefonso Pueblo, and the Los Alamos Airport. In his introduction for the show’s catalog, Grachos stated, “In order for public art to have power, it must be placed in a situation or location that allows viewers to come upon it randomly, almost by chance, but within the context of their daily lives.”
As could be expected, some of the installations encountered initial resistance, and two had to be immediately dismantled after the opening weekend—after protests from members of the specific communities. In one sense, the controversy of such endeavors as the 1999 SITES Biennial can itself be an enriching experience—as well as add to a project’s international renown. Grachos seems well-aware of this paradox, when he speaks of “both the difficulty and the excitement of new possibilities” in his catalogue text.
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“I really believe in working closely with artists, particularly in designing a show so that there are new contexts for the work,” explains Grachos. The installation opportunities of a tabula rasa institution like SITES Santa Fe, which had no permanent collection, allowed Grachos to recreate the space with every exhibition. That won’t be quite as easy at the Albright-Knox, but Grachos clearly intends to stretch the possibilities, and emphasizes the importance of locally generated exhibitions rather than pre-packaged touring shows.
“Your ideal circumstance is that you’re originating the show,” he says. “I learned at SITES that a contemporary, topical exhibition can have the same kind of appeal [as a ] ... historic “crowd pleaser.” You have to remember that the great supporters [of the Albright-Knox] were creative and forward-thinking. This museum has always had its eye on the moment.”
In order to create the potential for city-wide involvement in programming, Grachos plans to meet with other WNY arts organizations and discuss the possibility of collaboration on unique, multi-disciplinary programming. “I’m not interested in overlapping programs,” he adds.
As someone accustomed to splashy “happenings” like the SITES Biennial, Grachos can easily envisage city-wide arts events— and speaks glowingly of Buffalo’s long track record of inviting the avant garde, including the 1967-68 Festivals of the Arts. He even points out that it was a Buffalo artist and art patron—Mabel Dodge Luhan—who was largely responsible for turning Taos, New Mexico into a vibrant center for the arts, bringing artists to the region by the dozens. This connection, in addition to his own visits to the Albright-Knox as a Toronto-based teenager, is one of many that prompts Grachos to speak with such warmth and fondness of the Buffalo art scene.
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The catalog for one of Grachos' ambitious SITES Biennial projects. The cover shows Yolanda Gutierrez' installation in a lake on Native American pueblo.
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Building on a plan
In spite of his familiarity with the region, his professed love of the weather, and his eagerness to get on with it, Grachos will have plenty to get used to at the Albright-Knox. Instead of a warehouse, there is a historic Neoclassical building and an impressive Modernist addition. Instead of empty space, there is a large and renowned collection. And instead of a rotating schedule of guest curators and a “small, lean staff,” Grachos will be working with three staff curators, as well as numerous education, development, marketing, research, and preparation professionals. Some of the board members may have been on the roster when Grachos visited the museum as a teenager.
There is also a recently-completed strategic plan that was developed before the new director came aboard.
“The strategic plan is broad-based,” Grachos says—adding that he feels lucky to have inherited it. “It need not be linear. My first task is to figure out the priorities. One of its goals is to engage in a very forward-thinking contemporary art program. Another important object is to expand national and regional support. Also important is rethinking interesting ways of developing collaborative efforts with the community.”
Grachos has strongly stated opinions about how the museum will continue to develop a base of financial support. As a director who had to support million dollar budgets for internationally-based shows, he knows funding. “You’ve got to go beyond your territory,” he says. “We need to expand our support base nationally—building new relationships with national foundations.”
A kid in a candy shop
This interview took place in the Albright-Knox staff conference room, a space lined with window to ceiling glass on one side and large-format art works by Andres Serrano, Edward Burtynski, and others on the three sides. Grachos loves all the work in the room, but says he’ll be rehanging it, as well as other museum spaces, if only to see more work from storage brought out into the open. He’s obviously itching to see work that hasn’t been exhibited for years. For someone coming from a place that had to be reinvented every few moths, it must be a luxurious feeling to land in a treasure trove like this one.
“There is a real affection for the museum’s permanent collection,” Grachos says. As he looks fondly around the room at the artwork surrounding him, it’s clear that he already feels very much at home.
Elizabeth Licata is editor of Buffalo Spree.
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