Interview with Maxwell Anderson: "fostering an experimental climate open to innovation"
Posted by Steffen Böddeker
Yesterday's interview (here) with former IMA staffer Daniel Incandela ends with his belief that museums need to shed the institutional experience in favor of personality and individuality in order to successfully engage visitors. I followed up on this idea with IMA Director and CEO Maxwell Anderson, who speaks in more detail about the IMA's fearless commitment to transparency, its use of web-based programming to increase the museum's impact internationally, and the values that allow it to pursue innovation in the museum world.
ETB: In a recent NYT article, Roberta Smith called on museums (specifically contemporary art museums in New York) to develop greater individuality and a voice of their own in their exhibition programs. Through the IMA's online activities, especially its blog, the museum communicates a very strong sense of personality. How does this online profile relate to the institutional character you are pursuing in your other activities - exhibitions, collection, programs? Is it difficult to maintain a consistent image?
MA: IMA today seeks not to map to a particular character, but to reflect the values of transparency, experimentation, scholarship, and community inclusiveness.
ETB: At the Museums and the Web 2009 conference in Indianapolis, you also spoke about the need for greater institutional transparency, and you have made the IMA a leader in that regard. I see this in the information presented on the IMA Dashboard, but also in the voices of different staff members found on the blog. Do you ever feel that there is too much individual (staff) personality on the blog? Does your Board ever call you about something they are surprised to read there?
MA: I can't imagine IMA retreating from a very open and feisty blogging atmosphere. It is part and parcel of fostering an experiential climate open to innovation, unafraid of risk, and committed to truth-telling about museum practice. I would be surprised if many board members regularly read posts. If they did, I have no concern whatsoever that they would take exception to staff comments. After all, this Board consented to our suing prosecutors throughout the State of Indiana when we chose to fight a law we deemed unconstitutional in its abridgement of First Amendment rights. [Read more about this here.]
ETB: The online activities, especially launching ArtBabble.org, producing great video content, and hosting the blog, have helped move the IMA profile from a regional/national to an international level during the past years. How important are the online activities in the overall strategic plan for the IMA going forward?
MA: Our interest in web-based programming is simple: the more relevant we make ourselves to the field at large, the greater is IMA's potential impact. We avoid proprietary solutions, favor open-source technology, have no pride of authorship, and aim for the widest possible application of whatever we do. In this way, IMA stands to remain near the center of innovation in the museum world.
Maxwell Anderson speaks in more detail about the IMA's move to internet-based transparency in this below lecture of March 2009.
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