The New Guard

The future of this nascent relationship had been uncertain until Viso and Feldman were named. Now, the prospect of constructive, ongoing cooperation between the Walker and the MIA appears to be a foregone conclusion, and it could be a boon to both institutions. Joint exhibitions, shared education programs, artist and curator exchanges, cosponsored events, broader community outreach, greater negotiating clout for coveted big-ticket exhibits—all are potential offspring of a strong working friendship between the two women.

Viso and Feldman know each other primarily through their membership in the Association of Art Museum Directors, an invitation-only organization of elite North American art museum directors. There are more than 14,000 museums in the United States; only 180 of them are represented in the AAMD. When search firms and committees are looking for the art world’s best and brightest, they start here. In landing Viso and Feldman, the Twin Cities has hit something close to the arts management jackpot, says Millicent Gaudieri, executive director of the AAMD.

“They were both great choices,” says Gaudieri. “The Twin Cities is very lucky to get both of them. They are both extremely talented individuals. They bring different backgrounds to each institution, but each appointment is a great fit.”

Certainly, both women have demonstrated an uncanny knack for making the most of their professional opportunities. Olga Viso was born in Florida to Cuban émigré parents and attended Emory University in Atlanta. She began her career at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and worked as a curator at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. Twelve years ago, Viso joined the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian’s museum of contemporary and modern art, where she began as a curator and worked her way up through the ranks until she became its director three years ago.

Kaywin Feldman took a somewhat different route to the top, by practically starting at the top. Feldman attended the University of Michigan, where she got a degree in classical archaeology, then boosted her academic credentials with a master’s degree in art history from The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, as well as a master’s degree in museum studies from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of London. Though she didn’t have much managerial experience at the time, California’s Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art, History, and Science took a chance on her when she was only twenty-eight and hired her as director of exhibitions/curator, then promoted her to executive director. At thirty-two, she accepted the director position at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, where she has been for the past nine years.

According to the AAMD’s Gaudieri, both women have distinguished themselves by balancing the four pillars of excellence in any great museum director: the ability to create programming that is both challenging and accessible; the social acumen to associate equally well with artists, curators, patrons, and the public at large; the managerial savvy to attract and energize a talented staff; and a gift for charismatic and effective community outreach, including the ability to raise large amounts of money. At the Hirshhorn, for example, Viso successfully managed the museum when federal funds were being cut and more fiscal support from the community was necessary—not an easy thing to do in Washington, D.C., where most museum-goers are tourists from out of town. And one of the feathers in Feldman’s cap was the securing of a single-donor $5 million gift (the largest in the Brooks’s history) to kick off a recent capital campaign.

For all of their similarities, however, there are plenty of stark differences. Olga Viso is an expert in Latin and contemporary art; Feldman’s field of expertise is seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish painting. Viso’s primary commitment is to new work and the support of current artists; Feldman is a history buff whose palette of interests extends to distant cultures in Asia and the Mediterranean. Both seem to have landed at institutions that fit their talents extraordinarily well, and a look at their accomplishments so far may shed some light on what Twin Citians are likely to see from them in the future.

In choosing Viso, the Walker has selected someone whose artistic, aesthetic, and managerial sensibilities appear to be very close to those of her predecessor, Kathy Halbreich. The Hirshhorn itself is similar to the Walker in many respects as well, including the fact that it has an attached sculpture garden and is housed in a building that gets regularly derided in the press as “a drum on a stool” or an example of “Sputnik modernism.”

For these and many other reasons, Viso was one of the Walker’s top choices for replacing Halbreich from the beginning. According to Mike Peel, who was cochair of the Walker’s international search committee, thirteen other candidates were considered, but Viso remained at the top of their list throughout the process. “We already knew Olga well,” says Peel. “She and her staff have collaborated with the Walker on several projects [including the current Frida Kahlo show], and the Hirshhorn has a similar programming philosophy. I think we were very fortunate to get her. She’s one of the stars of her generation.”

Viso herself says she was attracted to the director position at the Walker partly because it is one of the highest and most influential positions in the world of contemporary art, and partly because it offers her an institutional tool for seeding partnerships and collaborations between artists and institutions in different disciplines. “The Hirshhorn is strictly a visual arts institution,” says Viso. “What is appealing to me at the Walker is that its performing arts [theater, dance, music] components allow the opportunity to foster cross-disciplinary work in so many different arenas. That’s what contemporary art is all about right now—multidisciplinary explorations between artists who are breaking down familiar barriers to create work that is new, different, and exciting.”

Outgoing Walker director Halbreich deserves at least some of the credit for making that last statement true. During her nearly seventeen-year tenure, she was known for programming that was both eclectic and esoteric, often bringing in artists who were barely known in the United States, much less the Midwest. By doing so, she raised the Walker’s national and international profile to such a degree that “Minneapolis” and “Walker” are practically synonymous in many parts of the world, especially Europe. During the Halbreich era, 12.7 million people visited the Walker and Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and more than thirty Walker-organized exhibitions traveled around the world, reaching more than 4 million people at seventy-five museums, in sixty cities, and fourteen countries. In addition, it has acquired 4,000 works for its permanent collection, presented more than 1,600 dance, music, and theater performances, and featured more than 3,500 films, documentaries, and shorts. Subtly, cleverly, and sometimes controversially, through deft handling of an astonishingly broad array of artistry in every conceivable medium, Halbreich also educated Twin Citians to be much more sophisticated consumers of global art and culture.