Last month, the Brooklyn Museum announced that Robert Weisenberger had joined the Contemporary Art team as Barbara and John Vogelstein Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. Although one of the city’s smaller institutions, the Brooklyn Museum holds a prominent place in the art world, having raised the profile of artists like Kehinde Wiley. Wiesenberger comes to Brooklyn from the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and we caught up with him to hear about his plans for the new gig.
I’ve been at this job for a few weeks now. What surprised you most about the Brooklyn Museum as you got to know it from the inside?
I was struck by the breadth of the collection and the sheer size of the museum, and the fact that it was originally planned to be four times larger. I also take great joy in the daily experience of walking through the beautifully restored Art of Asia galleries to get to my office each day. I don’t think this will get old! It is best to see school groups there talking or drawing. Experiences like this, when I was a kid, are why I do what I do now.
Your job involves growing the group. What gaps do you see in the Brooklyn Museum’s contemporary collection, or where are areas for improvement, and how do you propose to fill them?
It’s a great set and has its strengths. I don’t think it’s unreasonable in this area to look to bring together more international artists who call Brooklyn home. It is also important that we follow artists’ lead in considering some of the defining issues of our time, such as the collapse of the natural systems that support us or what it means to be human in an age of technological mediation. I want to look at more of the hybrid practices that are thriving in this city, between art, design, sound, experimental publishing, etc.
Does the current market moment represent an opportunity for organizations?
I’m no market expert, but the current moment – which is very bleak for all living things – represents an opportunity for museums as places of curiosity, wonder, beauty, connection, exchange, sustained interest, criticism, and relatively less commercial pressure. Museums need to improve, but they are also lacking. I believe in these institutions in general and the Brooklyn Museum in particular, which is a uniquely vital and beloved place in this community and beyond.
Another part of your business is evolving.”Brooklyn Artists Gallery”, which debuts in 2024. How would you like to see it develop?
The next edition of this exhibition will certainly not be larger than the previous edition, which included 200 artists to celebrate the museum’s bicentenary. It will be more concentrated, although its exact form has not been determined. I do studio visits, which I love, and learn from artists about the artists they care about most.
You’re coming to the Brooklyn Museum from the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. What are some of your favorite exhibitions you have curated there?
I’m proud of the exhibition on display there now, by Paris-based artist Raffaella della Olga, who uses modified typewriters to create one-of-a-kind art books. The work is beautiful and intimate and weaves together old and new media. I’m also proud of the exhibition by the late German-Iraqi artist Lin Mei Saeed, which was her first solo show at the museum (she has an exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery in New York this spring). Lin has presented strange and moving work about animals and the human-animal relationship.
This job has you teaching as well. Did you find that the educational component of your job influenced your organization?
definitely! Seminars and workshops served as a testing ground for ideas, outstanding graduate students contributed directly to projects, and fostering lively discussion was a big part of what curators could do at an exhibition.
Your bio says that one of your recurring research areas is “ecology and the transhuman world.” What does that mean? How do you think your work in this regard will impact your tenure in Brooklyn?
It means thinking relationally about the systems we live in, both natural and artificial, as many artists do. Environmental and social issues are deeply intertwined, and the forces that extract from and exploit the natural world do the same to people (and similarly, those least responsible for environmental shocks, both global and local, are often the first and hardest hit by them). New York City is surprisingly biodiverse, and the city’s dynamics are often discussed in ecological terms. I’m excited to work with artists to explore these questions, both within the museum’s galleries and at the adjacent Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The sensing, thinking, and feeling skills honed by museums are now vital, as artists address multiple forms of intelligence and how to live and even thrive on a dying planet.
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