This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Schaming: It’s a different entity than other museums. An academic art museum can bring to its exhibitions and programming the scholarship from across the disciplines to be able to create and think about exhibitions around what the academic institution has to offer. At the University of Albany, we’re a contemporary art museum and that’s a very specific role that’s very different from an institution that has an art historical connection that starts at a much earlier date than our collection does. The majority of work we exhibit here is made by living artists.
Berry: Campus art museums are critical to so many parts of the university operation – not just in the creation of knowledge, but also how we intersect with society, culture and community. The academic museum can be the hub of everything we do at colleges and universities because we foreground creativity. We foreground experimentation, collaboration, the co-creation of knowledge – whether that be with students, with faculty, with artists. We also have an interesting role in being the bridge to the community for our home institutions. Campus museums, to me, are where it’s at.
Berry: We’ve been in touch with economists, historians, scholars of all kinds on our campus. I love making a show about pattern and having math professors move objects around in the gallery to demonstrate how to teach mathematical concepts with artworks. We had a chemistry professor make a fantastic show about molecules, choosing one molecule for every decade of the last 100 years to talk about innovation and chemistry. I love all of those.
Schaming: Where we have had a lot of success, particularly recently, is bringing in faculty around an exhibition to present their research that may have threads to a particular artist we are presenting or a particular theme within a group exhibition; one example centered around Angela Davis’s book “Women, Race and Class.” We reached out to faculty to present their research, based on specific chapters of that seminal text, in a reading conversational context. That’s the kind of activity that allows a collaboration and bringing people into the museum for conversations.
Berry: I feel like the museum and its work – creating new art, creating new scholarship which then creates new knowledge and the experimentation and collaboration that go along with that – is all in service of building better citizens. We’re here for teaching and learning and wrestling with issues and creating critical thinkers and problem-solvers who are going to make the world a better place. The museum is really the center for that – whether at a small liberal arts school, a big research institution university, or a community college. The mission stays the same. I feel strongly about our role and when I think about communicating that to all the different constituencies, reminding everyone about how exciting it is to sort of build better citizens, that’s enthralling.
Schaming: Everyone here at the museum is very aware of, and also excited in, how we approach our programs…how we approach our exhibitions. We made a conscientious effort to think about what does it mean to be “student-centered?” We’re more than 17,000 students: How do we serve that community and make that case as we do? We’ve become well-versed in the strategic initiatives of the University and the art museum’s core values align with them 100%. What does the university say when they talk about accessibility? What do they say about student success, diversity and inclusion, research excellence, internationalization? They’re the same things that we talk about, so it’s really great to be part of that larger, larger community.
Berry: I can say that the programming for the Tang Museum, like the UAlbany Art Museum, has been interested in all different kinds of makers and people, and we are welcoming and generous to a lot of different kinds of ideas and points of view – that includes gender, race, age, countries and ways of making and speaking. I was thrilled to be a student at UAlbany and to experience exhibitions of really interesting artists and curators showing me images from different parts of the world and ideas that I had never considered. I think the museum is a perfect place for developing all of those social and cross-cultural skills of openness, interest, dialogue. I think we’ve both done that at our museums and I’m so moved when that I see that happening in the galleries – whether it’s at an event or panel discussion or a talk that helps an artist build a new piece of work that’s directly about a lived experience happening right now.
Schaming: I agree with what you’ve said, Ian, and thank you for what you’ve said about the University Art Museum, and I feel the same way about the Tang’s programming. I think we can always do better. When I think about diversity and inclusion, it extends beyond our exhibitions and programs. The reality is that while our programming may appear diverse and inclusive, our staff does not reflect that and the larger art world still does not reflect that. When you think about the fact that 51% of UAlbany students are first-generation college students and there is a real sense that a career in museums may not a viable choice to pursue. To me that’s the nut to crack: How do we dispel the notion that there is an elitism behind what museums do or that they’re not something that is as accessible to everyone? These are real serious blocks in terms of how we change the larger art world when we talk about diversity and inclusion.
Berry: That’s one of the reasons I love doing what we do because if we’re doing our jobs right, then we are showing people, perhaps, the first museum that felt welcoming to them…or the first museum that had images on the wall that looked like somebody from a different country…from their neighborhood…from their family. If we’re programming the right way, then I hope – in our tiny way – we make it possible for a group of young people to believe they can enter the museum world and become a curator or a registrar or preparator and see the museum as a place that could be theirs.
Schaming: I agree that it’s important to see diversity reflected in the programming and exhibitions, but I think it should be also reflected in the makeup of our teams. Right now, we have six interns and all of them are students of color.
Berry: That’s great!
Schaming: It has changed us in many ways and it hasn’t. We did online exhibitions. We learned through Zoom that you can have meaningful encounters with people and can also do studio visits. A lot of ideas can pollinate through that kind of encounter, but in the end, we’re exhibition makers. We’re artist-driven. We work with artists, we need that first-hand encounter with the work. As soon as we were able, the museum team got together to realize physical exhibitions in our space because that’s what we do. When we first opened our doors again and had folks come into the space and look at art, that feeling was so palpable. It was the most rewarding moment to really see what a void had been created by not having this kind of experience. To be able to slowly reopen our doors and share what we do again, it’s just everything.
Berry: It’s the greatest. I love that feeling. I absolutely concur with that excitement and the emotional moment of reopening after so long – and realizing what you missed and seeing the importance of your role in the community. For the Tang Museum, it also forced us to think about the core of what we do. We asked ourselves: “Okay, if we’re going to reopen differently? How are we going to reopen? What’s going to be different about us?” We considered things as tiny as whether we are going to make brochures in the gallery again to much larger issues like whether we are going to staff the museum in the same way? I think all those possibilities are in flux. We will definitely be much more in touch with our colleagues; that is something I know that has changed for us. In particular, the museums closest to us – all very good friends – but we never really collaborated. It took a real society- changing moment to get us to reach out and help each other and share things and information. I think that’s going to last and stay with us.
Berry: It’s just another medium.
Schaming: It remains to be seen. The best art is never just a commodity. I think we just have to see what artists end up doing with it. we’ll leave it to the artists to lead the way on this one.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Schaming: It’s a different entity than other museums. An academic art museum can bring to its exhibitions and programming the scholarship from across the disciplines to be able to create and think about exhibitions around what the academic institution has to offer. At the University of Albany, we’re a contemporary art museum and that’s a very specific role that’s very different from an institution that has an art historical connection that starts at a much earlier date than our collection does. The majority of work we exhibit here is made by living artists.
Berry: Campus art museums are critical to so many parts of the university operation – not just in the creation of knowledge, but also how we intersect with society, culture and community. The academic museum can be the hub of everything we do at colleges and universities because we foreground creativity. We foreground experimentation, collaboration, the co-creation of knowledge – whether that be with students, with faculty, with artists. We also have an interesting role in being the bridge to the community for our home institutions. Campus museums, to me, are where it’s at.
Berry: We’ve been in touch with economists, historians, scholars of all kinds on our campus. I love making a show about pattern and having math professors move objects around in the gallery to demonstrate how to teach mathematical concepts with artworks. We had a chemistry professor make a fantastic show about molecules, choosing one molecule for every decade of the last 100 years to talk about innovation and chemistry. I love all of those.
Schaming: Where we have had a lot of success, particularly recently, is bringing in faculty around an exhibition to present their research that may have threads to a particular artist we are presenting or a particular theme within a group exhibition; one example centered around Angela Davis’s book “Women, Race and Class.” We reached out to faculty to present their research, based on specific chapters of that seminal text, in a reading conversational context. That’s the kind of activity that allows a collaboration and bringing people into the museum for conversations.
Berry: I feel like the museum and its work – creating new art, creating new scholarship which then creates new knowledge and the experimentation and collaboration that go along with that – is all in service of building better citizens. We’re here for teaching and learning and wrestling with issues and creating critical thinkers and problem-solvers who are going to make the world a better place. The museum is really the center for that – whether at a small liberal arts school, a big research institution university, or a community college. The mission stays the same. I feel strongly about our role and when I think about communicating that to all the different constituencies, reminding everyone about how exciting it is to sort of build better citizens, that’s enthralling.
Schaming: Everyone here at the museum is very aware of, and also excited in, how we approach our programs…how we approach our exhibitions. We made a conscientious effort to think about what does it mean to be “student-centered?” We’re more than 17,000 students: How do we serve that community and make that case as we do? We’ve become well-versed in the strategic initiatives of the University and the art museum’s core values align with them 100%. What does the university say when they talk about accessibility? What do they say about student success, diversity and inclusion, research excellence, internationalization? They’re the same things that we talk about, so it’s really great to be part of that larger, larger community.
Berry: I can say that the programming for the Tang Museum, like the UAlbany Art Museum, has been interested in all different kinds of makers and people, and we are welcoming and generous to a lot of different kinds of ideas and points of view – that includes gender, race, age, countries and ways of making and speaking. I was thrilled to be a student at UAlbany and to experience exhibitions of really interesting artists and curators showing me images from different parts of the world and ideas that I had never considered. I think the museum is a perfect place for developing all of those social and cross-cultural skills of openness, interest, dialogue. I think we’ve both done that at our museums and I’m so moved when that I see that happening in the galleries – whether it’s at an event or panel discussion or a talk that helps an artist build a new piece of work that’s directly about a lived experience happening right now.
Schaming: I agree with what you’ve said, Ian, and thank you for what you’ve said about the University Art Museum, and I feel the same way about the Tang’s programming. I think we can always do better. When I think about diversity and inclusion, it extends beyond our exhibitions and programs. The reality is that while our programming may appear diverse and inclusive, our staff does not reflect that and the larger art world still does not reflect that. When you think about the fact that 51% of UAlbany students are first-generation college students and there is a real sense that a career in museums may not a viable choice to pursue. To me that’s the nut to crack: How do we dispel the notion that there is an elitism behind what museums do or that they’re not something that is as accessible to everyone? These are real serious blocks in terms of how we change the larger art world when we talk about diversity and inclusion.
Berry: That’s one of the reasons I love doing what we do because if we’re doing our jobs right, then we are showing people, perhaps, the first museum that felt welcoming to them…or the first museum that had images on the wall that looked like somebody from a different country…from their neighborhood…from their family. If we’re programming the right way, then I hope – in our tiny way – we make it possible for a group of young people to believe they can enter the museum world and become a curator or a registrar or preparator and see the museum as a place that could be theirs.
Schaming: I agree that it’s important to see diversity reflected in the programming and exhibitions, but I think it should be also reflected in the makeup of our teams. Right now, we have six interns and all of them are students of color.
Berry: That’s great!
Schaming: It has changed us in many ways and it hasn’t. We did online exhibitions. We learned through Zoom that you can have meaningful encounters with people and can also do studio visits. A lot of ideas can pollinate through that kind of encounter, but in the end, we’re exhibition makers. We’re artist-driven. We work with artists, we need that first-hand encounter with the work. As soon as we were able, the museum team got together to realize physical exhibitions in our space because that’s what we do. When we first opened our doors again and had folks come into the space and look at art, that feeling was so palpable. It was the most rewarding moment to really see what a void had been created by not having this kind of experience. To be able to slowly reopen our doors and share what we do again, it’s just everything.
Berry: It’s the greatest. I love that feeling. I absolutely concur with that excitement and the emotional moment of reopening after so long – and realizing what you missed and seeing the importance of your role in the community. For the Tang Museum, it also forced us to think about the core of what we do. We asked ourselves: “Okay, if we’re going to reopen differently? How are we going to reopen? What’s going to be different about us?” We considered things as tiny as whether we are going to make brochures in the gallery again to much larger issues like whether we are going to staff the museum in the same way? I think all those possibilities are in flux. We will definitely be much more in touch with our colleagues; that is something I know that has changed for us. In particular, the museums closest to us – all very good friends – but we never really collaborated. It took a real society- changing moment to get us to reach out and help each other and share things and information. I think that’s going to last and stay with us.
Berry: It’s just another medium.
Schaming: It remains to be seen. The best art is never just a commodity. I think we just have to see what artists end up doing with it. we’ll leave it to the artists to lead the way on this one.
