The Museum Director as Gardener
Institutions are human creations. Building and reshaping them requires imagination, experimentation and a tolerance for uncertainty.
When the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison) reopens this November, visitors will see an innovative, object-centered approach to presenting the museum’s collection and experience the result of a new approach to museum leadership. Guiding the reinstallation of more than 25,000 works revealed that the skill and fortitude required for museum leadership has vastly changed.
In 2021, I published an op-ed in this publication arguing against the era of the director as a singular genius charting a course for everyone. I now understand what should replace it: leadership that pairs managerial acumen with creativity. I used to understand visionary and managerial leadership as opposites. I now believe that administration should be both managerial and creative, cultivating conditions for new possibilities.
The collection reinstallation emerged through collaboration, experimentation, failure, trust-building and “sifting and winnowing,” a core value held by UW–Madison that comes from a 1894 statement by the board of regents: “Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”
Sifting and winnowing is poetry grounded in something very real — the work needed to separate the grain from the chaff. Sifting is hard work, especially by hand. Winnowing, where you direct a current of air across the separated grains to lift and remove the chaff leaving only what is useful, is poetry embodied. But you can’t get to the poetry without first putting in the work.
