Photo by Matt Wargo
Long before plans for PPL Center arena, chic restaurants and boutique shopping opportunities were even on the drawing board, the Allentown Art Museum served as an institutional beacon and fervent provider of cultural opportunity; an essential spoke of an economic wheel if it were ever to perpetually turn in the right direction. It presided, stalwart, over a struggling city.
Now that Allentown’s revitalization is kicking into high gear, we wondered what that could mean contextually for the museum and its present and future patrons. We took our questions about that and some others to AAM Director David Mickenberg for answers. The following is his dialogue with LVS arts writer, Steve Piccione.
David Mickenberg, AAM Director
Photo Courtesy of Allentown Art Museum
Tell me about the rich experience of visiting the Allentown Art Museum (AAM) and why people who haven't visited in recent years would enjoy a fresh look.
All museums are organic institutions that change over time, that seek new ways to engage audiences and forge new experiences for the visitor. The AAM reinstalls collections and presents a varied schedule of exhibitions with fresh ideas, new technologies, changing perspectives and contemporary viewpoints. The arts of the past and the present are on view in a way that allows every visitor to encounter new work upon each visit, meet artists who have significantly changed history and find opportunities to enjoy the arts with their entire family. The museum is a social space to meet friends, enjoy family, be entertained and learn.
Galvanizing the community is essential for the growth of the museum. How are you harnessing the energies of this institution to encourage community interest, growth and participation? What is the AAM's role in the revival occurring in Allentown?
The AAM is one of this region’s most important social, educational and economic assets. The revitalization of Allentown’s urban core will depend not just on the bricks and mortar that will transform its architectural status and bring thousands to work and live downtown, but also upon an elevated quality of life. The museum, the arts organizations located downtown and the artists of this community are a key to that quality of life. It is no mistake that communities across the country have, for decades, realized and invested in the arts to ensure that the inner city is diverse, fascinating, entertaining and an extraordinary human experience. To do this, the museum is extending its evening hours, staying open on Sundays with free admission and partnering with other arts organizations, community groups, educational institutions and social service organizations to offer unique programs in the arts.
What are the museum’s current challenges and opportunities?
The re-emergence of downtown as a live/work urban environment has opportunities and challenges for the museum as well as for all of the arts organizations downtown. The museum brings more than 120,000 [visitors] annually to the downtown and more will be coming. Providing opportunities for those new audiences to engage in the arts, to improve the educational systems that will affect their families and to provide new experiences throughout the city and outside of the museum is an extraordinary and welcome challenge and opportunity. Yet it will also require [us] to re-think some of its programming initiatives, expand hours to ensure accessibility and find new resources to enable us to meet those opportunities. At the same time, not only working with new audiences, but with the communities surrounding downtown, ensuring that we are part of the development and prosperity of those communities is a primary goal.
Artist Chakaia Booker with two of her works at opening of Interventions in Printmaking exhibit
Photo by Aubrey Van Wyk
Tell us about the unique experience for artists who have the privilege of exhibiting their work in your space?
The former director of the Louvre once stated that museums without contemporary art and artists are dead institutions. He was correct. The museum space is a unique environment for the presentation of contemporary art, for integrating the artists with the public and making sure that the arts are considered a fundamental aspect of our heritage and future. Without an active contemporary presence we have little ability to engage younger audiences and engage new technologies. The exhibition, Past/Present: Conversations Across Time, is a great example of how nine artists have influenced how we can look at our collections with new ideas, alter our perspectives on our own space and provide the public with an extraordinary experience with our community’s most creative minds. It has been a phenomenal opportunity for all of [our] staff and volunteers to have the community of artists be a part of what the museum is becoming.
How do you engage and collaborate with colleges and artists?
For many years, the museum has had an unpaid student internship program during the academic year. That has been expanded to a paid internship program during the summers that is a collaboration between the museum and five academic institutions in this region. Faculty from many of [our] regional colleges [serve as] adjunct curators, and both they and their students work in a curatorial and educational capacity. Furthermore, the museum is blessed with the ideas and creativity of faculty in many disciplines who have been working with our staff and students to foster creative programming for the benefit of [the entire] Lehigh Valley. From nanotechnology impacting art conservation, to the role of the arts in fostering diversity, the museum works with academic partners in research, exhibition design, teaching and publications.
Have you had a chance to imbibe the density and diversity of the Valley art scene? Is there a productive proximity or points of intersection between the AAM and the more experimental facets of Valley arts?
There are probably many who can answer this better than I can, [as] I have only been here for 14 months. Yet what I have seen to date is an artistic community that is diverse, takes risks, employs new technologies and is deeply invested in the accessibility of their work and those of others to broaden audiences. The Valley is replete with artists in traditional forms as well as those working in new media and multiple technologies. There are some extraordinary photographers throughout the Valley, muralists, artists, filmmakers, architects, sculptors, folk artists, printmakers, installation artists and artists whose work is digitally based and often ephemeral. The museum is a place to support, commission, present, foster and build audiences for their work.
Barnaby Ruhe painting take-home portraits of guests at Cocktails & Collecting
Photo by Terree O'Neill Yeagle
Would you share how the AAM is making a difference in the lives of children?
Every fourth grade student in Allentown gets to come to the museum several times over the course of the year. Sundays are a spectacular day on which the museum is open to the public (free of admission), and staff and volunteers are upstairs in our Art Ways Interactive Family Gallery providing a bevy of activities that are fun while being educational.
As important, the museum views its educational initiatives as part of the development in young people of critical thinking skills and the importance of visual acuity in a modern world. Our ongoing efforts with regional schools, teachers and educators is designed to foster an environment in which the arts are a critical part of education and a constant presence in the classroom and at home.
What is the role of new media art in the life of the museum?
As we look to the future, new media will be at the core of our efforts to communicate with younger audiences, spark discussion about the nature of contemporary art, and engage all audiences in unexpected experiences. We will explore the use of avatars to gain greater access to our collections, expand upon social media as a way of communicating the visitor experience, and use film and video to help audiences contextualize the art on view. New media allows for opportunities not previously experienced or even conceived.
It has been said that, ‘True agency begins when we change the way we think.’ How are you changing the way people think about the museum? As artists and proponents of growth, how can we dismantle dismissive or erroneous notions about the relevance of art and art institutions in the practical lives of citizens?
We know that those who engage the arts do better in school, that those who study, practice, see and create, to any degree, do better on standardized tests, flourish in graduate school to a greater degree than if they had not, and do better in the workforce. I often remember how my father told me that one of the keys to his success in business was his ability to speak about, create and appreciate the arts. He was also a pretty good artist! Yet as a society we seem to forget the role of the arts in education, community development and citizenship. We act as if there were no consequences when we sacrifice them to budget cuts. We have decimated arts [programs] in the schools and often think that the arts will survive without ongoing civic and private support. For Allentown to capitalize fully on the potential of its extraordinary recent development, it will have to creatively rethink the role of the arts in its development and re-conceptualize the manner in which its artists and arts institutions are integrated and sustained. The museum views seeing this happen as one of its primary missions.
31 N. 5th St., Allentown | 610.432.4333 | allentownartmuseum.org
