Claudia Gould, Director
Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
In 1999 Claudia Gould was appointed Director of Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art; in the brief year and a half since, she has brought a host of leading artists to the museum, including James Casabere, Clare E. Rojas, and Lisa Yuskavage in her first solo show. (See the slides below.) From 1994-1999 Gould was the Executive Director of Artists Space in New York, a prominent venue for emerging artists, where she not only eliminated the organization’s 200,000 dollar deficit but also built a 1.5 million dollar endowment fund. In addition, Gould has worked as both a staff and independent curator for a number of prestigious art venues, including the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, New York; and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, New York. She holds a BA from Boston College in Art History and an MA from New York University in Museum Studies.
The interview was conducted by Dana Sunshine of TheArtBiz.com.
You have a BA in Art History and a masters in Museum Studies. When did you decide to curate and manage museum shows? What drew you to contemporary art?
When I got out of college I wanted to move to New York, because I felt that if you wanted to be in the art world you needed to be there. I would still say that is true for young artists, absolutely. As unaffordable as it is, you get an education on the street there that you can’t get anywhere else.
When I got out of school [in 1978], there was no such thing as career training to be a curator. I started interning at the New Museum and then I heard about the arts administration program at NYU. Now I would tell young people to go for their masters in art history--it’s something that I regret not doing. At the time, I was also working [at the Metropolitan Museum of Art] and there were all these art historians there who had their masters and PhDs, and they were picking up the phone just like I was. I thought-- I just don’t want to wind up a receptionist in the exact same place, so I should do something a little more practical. During that time I interned at Artists Space and at a commercial gallery. When I got out of graduate school I got a job as a curator, which is really kind of extraordinary and doesn’t happen very often. It was at a place called Hallwalls in Buffalo, which is like Artists Space--it’s a non-profit. Then I came back to New York and worked at P.S. 1 for few years, and then I went out to be a curator at the Wexner Center in Ohio. When I returned to New York I did a few very big freelance projects.
I was wondering about your career as an independent curator, because it seems that a lot of young curators are freelancing right now.
The reason they do it is because it’s so hard to get a job as a curator. You can’t make a living as a freelance curator. But I was working on really big projects that I raised a lot of money for, and then I became director of Artist Space. So, the route wasn’t straight. I always feel like I came in the back door. I was always working at alternative spaces, except for the Wexner Center, which was a brand new museum at the time. It was also a university museum.
If I were to give advice to young people, it would be to just to do it yourself.
To go about your path as you see fit?
Yes. If you want to curate a show and you can find a space to do it in, just do it.
The issue is, if your dealing with contemporary art, you need to align yourself with artists. I think that is a really important aspect of this job. I did that. I wasn’t conscious of doing it, but when I came to New York I fell into a group of young emerging artists. I was not an artist, never was, but those artists became my friends. As they grew older and become more well known I moved with them.
I wanted to ask you about fundraising as well. Do you feel that your fundraising talents legitimized your curatorial proposals when you were freelancing? Was that essential?
Absolutely essential.
Can you describe a day in the life of the director of the ICA? How much of your day is spent considering art and how much business?
Half and half. I just got off the phone with a curator in Austria, and we were talking about loans for an exhibition, about fundraising, and about where the pieces are going to come from. I spend time looking over work if I have to write about it, but I don’t have a lot of free time during the day. I have a staff that looks at the web and does research for me.
What factors go into deciding who and what to show?
It’s a balance. You look at a season, and you try to achieve a balance: male and female, minority and white. You want a balance of mediums as well as a balance between local and international artists. Non-homogeny is the word. I like to have the shows speak to each other, but at the same time they have to be different from each other.
Do you notice a trend in popularity right now of one medium over another?
Video really. A lot of artists who are not video artists are dabbling in it because it’s so accessible and cheap.
How do you find the artists you want to show? Do you rely on gallery recommendations? What about slide databases?
I rely on word of mouth and I rely on my staff to bring in stuff. I rely on them to go and look at shows. I do not rely on slide databases. I think about other shows I see, artists that I know...
What advice would you give to young artists hoping to show their work?
Do it yourself. Show it. Expose it. Get people to see it.
What advice would you give to someone interested in a career in curating or museum management?
Get a job. It can be a curatorial assistant job, or a receptionist job--just get a job in the place you want to be. Then do a good job there. Two years later, move on, get another job, and it will come if you stick to it. Absolutely. Even if you’re the receptionist someplace and you want to curate shows and you’re not going to get that chance at that institution, use the artists you meet to curate a show on your own. In any space--in a house, in your living room, anywhere. Just do it yourself.
This article was originally created for TheArtBiz.com. It appears on NYFA Interactive courtesy of the Abigail Rebecca Cohen Library.
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