April 24, 2019 • 38 mins
Holly had the privilege of sitting down with Stephanie Stebich, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, for a chat in the museum. The discussion covers the building's history, one of the new exhibits there, and one of Stephanie's favorite items in the Smithsonian's collection.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
I am super duper excited because I was recently fortunate
enough to visit the Smithsonian American Art Museum and sit
(00:22):
down with the director, Stephanie Steepish for a chat. And
this interview isn't focused on anyone's specific thing. We talk
about Stephanie's work and some of the museums exhibit, but
also just what museums offer the world and how they
fit into history. Stephanie has a passion for her work
and for sharing art with a public that's completely infectious,
and what she really cares about is how people engage
(00:43):
with the museum. So when she first sat down with
Holly for the interview, she asked Collie a question right
out of the gate. Find out what Holly thought of
the time at the museum this morning. Yeah, she's a
little embarrassing because I might have cried in front of
some art um. We're going to pick up this interview
with my answer, and then we'll start off my Inner
You with Stephanie, which quickly opens up into the history
of the building that houses the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
(01:08):
So it's been amazing. I um mentioned to you before
we came in that I had my little tearful moment
with the Edmonia Lewis sculpture because I'm a great admirer
of her in her life story is very inspiring. Uh
So that in and of itself was my great thing.
And because we're here before it opens, and to like
have private time with a piece of art like that
is beyond special to me. What I want to hear
(01:30):
about from you, though, is there are some things that
you showed me that we walked around together doing and
some things that I walked around on my own experiencing,
which I will ask you about in a bit. But
before we get to any of that, I want to
ask you how you landed here, Like, how does one
become the lead of a place like this? Well, I
(01:51):
would tell you, Holly, I have the greatest job possible.
Uh it is a job where every day I'm working
with really talented, aative people. And I'm not just talking
about my phenomenal staff, but artists who come here, people
who have a passion and collect people who want to
write about what we present, art critics and thinkers, uh,
(02:13):
and also people who have never been here before, as
well as people who love this place deeply and and
have their five favorite objects, favorite places in the museum.
So how do you grow up and become a museum director? Well,
I want to tell you the Smithsonian is in many
ways the Harvard of Art museums, because we are this
(02:33):
big family of museums. Were the largest research and museum
complex in the world. We are these sort of official
national museums of different subject matters. So in my case
it's American art as well as I run the Renwick Gallery,
which is the National Museum of Craft uh. And then
you go through the National Museum of African Art and
(02:54):
the Cooper Hewitt and on and on, all these specialties.
I grew up in museums. I fell at home in museums.
I studied art history and UM. There are different pathways
I could have taught. I could have worked at an
auction house or a gallery, could have written. But when
you work in a museum, you get to touch that
many more lives. Uh. You get to constantly learn. It's
(03:18):
a graduate seminar with every special exhibition we do. When
we make really tough decisions about which works of art
we're going to accept or with limited dollars purchase, we
are making an important statement about time and place. And
I like to say, in museums we're in the forever business.
(03:40):
Oh that's beautiful. So there's a there's a sacred duty.
And I would tell you I often tell my staff
that museums are a team sport. Yes I have the
good luck of being the director, but it's really a
nobody can do this work alone. It's just it's just
too many facets to um to have any single person,
(04:00):
even even our curators who think up these wonderful projects.
It depends on so many arms and legs to get
something done here. I love it. And I mean, just
in our short time walking around with some of your staff,
that's abundantly clear that just everyone here one is incredibly smart,
incredibly engaged, like trying to even like just the people
(04:23):
that are walking through doing maintenance stuff. Nobody is like
just clocking in and doing their joke like they all
seem to really holly. Museums are generally happy places, right.
Just people come with some leisure time, They come with
their friends, they come with their family, they come on
special occasions, they come to share things that are deeply
meaningful to them. They come for fun, they come for surprise.
(04:47):
Hopefully they leave remembering something that they saw. That that
that I like to think that, Um, the gift artists
give us when we encounter to their work and really
spend time with the work, is uh that artists change
the way we see the world. Yeah, one one object,
(05:09):
one artwork at a time. So the building we're in
as well, you gave me a quick version earlier. You
took us into the secret room, which is off of
what appears to initially be a very standard sort of
coat room, and then there's a secret room which has
some really cool insights into the building's history. Will you
talk about this building's history and how it how it's
(05:30):
evolved over the years to where it is now. Sure,
it's a spectacular building. It spans too city blocks seventh
to ninth Street, and uh is boundaried by F and
G Streets, and so we have entrances on both sides.
And that secret room you'll find on the F Street entrance.
As you perhaps hang up your code or leave your bag,
(05:51):
you'll see there's a little chamber in the back where
we have left uncovered the um the structure of the building,
because this was built as the Patent Office for the
United States, the third federal building built after the White
House and the Capital, and you have to imagine this
(06:14):
must be a very important building. It's where American entrepreneurship
and creativity is at home, and it's a pretty good
choice to locate the National Museum of American Art. So
the building originally housed shelves, rows and rows of shelves
of patent models. President Andrew Jackson signed legislation about around
(06:36):
patent law which mandated that as an inventor, you had
to bring forward a model of your of your invention
plus drawings and explain how this was made, and that
future inventors could come and look and say, oh, actually,
what I have is an improvement, is a variation on
an existing patent. Again, you have to be your patent
(06:59):
has to be review. Even today, and recently I heard, Holly,
you might find fascinating the ten million US patent was
issued recently, ten million. It's astonishing to think about all
of the ingenuity that the preceding UH numbers all contained.
In many cases, like it's it's just such a great
(07:20):
deal about the never ending quest to make new things
and fill gaps that we need. And it's sort of
beautiful indeed. And and this historic building also went through
some transformations. It was built to be fireproof, so that
meant originally, you know, stay away from wooden beams and
work with iron tresses and such. And built in the
(07:40):
Greek Revival style. It during the Civil War housed hospital.
Walt Whitman would come here and UH read to injured soldiers.
UH and UH in its incarnation as the Patent Office,
the very important to Clara Barton worked here. We would
(08:03):
know her for two important reasons. Of course, she was
the founder of the American Red Cross, and in today's
important conversation about gender equality, she was the first government
um employee who was given equal pay for equal work.
Clara Barton here at the old Patent Novice And it
(08:24):
also housed earlier iterations and collections of the Smithsonian, and then,
thankfully in nine after a significant restoration, was the official
home for UH, the Smithsonian, American Art Museum, and our
sister museum, the National Portrait Gallery. And it's so beautiful.
Walking around, I spied something very cool which has been
(08:47):
retained despite updates and things being renovated. There is a
tiny piece of graffiti that you guys kept in now
it's almost its own little secret artwork exhibit. Will you
talk about that a little bit? Yes, I I think
museums have wonderful objects that we caretake and hopefully we
display it in intriguing, in beautiful ways, provocative ways sometimes.
(09:10):
And yet let's not forget the house in which we sit,
whether it's a contemporary building. And they're wonderful star architects
for building great museums these days, but many museums are
located in historic buildings, you know, repurposed. And so if
we can bring a little bit of the magic out,
if we can remind people that UM that these great
(09:31):
UH facilities had important roles. Not only we were a
Civil War hospital, but we were the home for Abraham
Lincoln's second inaugural ball, because it was one of the
largest spaces in Washington City for such an event. Yeah,
I do we have any insight into who the mystery
HF that I wish I could tell you. I wish
(09:52):
I could tell you that it was Walt Whitman himself. No, UM,
not the case, however, Walt Whitman. Uh, there are echoes
of women around the city. So I invite you to
go to the du Pont Circle train metro exit and
etched in the entry and exit tunnel is the Walt
Whitman poem about his days reading to Civil War. Um,
(10:15):
you know injured. Yeah, I love it so for listeners.
It's a tiny little piece of like a window frame.
It just has the initial C HF carved in it
and then it stated August eight sixty four. And you
guys have put this beautiful just a little glass over
it and it It is sort of funny because when
(10:35):
you look at it straight on, it almost looks like
you just mounted a picture on the wall. But then
when you see it from the side, you realize it's
just protecting something that's part of this building's history. I'm
so glad you found it, Holly. We uh want people
to look closely at works of art and then also
explore a little bit of the building. So when you're
in the Great Hall, which was where Lincoln's inauguration was,
(10:58):
and if you look at the floor, it feels different
than in the rest of the building. You're not on
marble floors. You're not even on wood gallery floors. You're
on beautiful tiled floors. And because that is a completely
different style, there was a fire in seven in this building,
and so a new architectural style was added to our
Greek Revival building, something called Neo Renaissance, and um, so
(11:22):
a very different grandeur was was added to the building,
gave it a bit of an update. I hope everyone
who visits the Smithsonian American Art Museum seeks out that
little bit of preserved graffiti that we talked about. It
just feels so unique and special, and it tethers the
building to its past. Coming up, Stephanie will share two
stories about places in the building. She thinks they're extra
(11:43):
special and that visitors should make sure to visit. But
first we will take a quick sponsor break. You mentioned
that this was at one point the U. S. Patent Office,
and you still have on display some unique pieces that
are you know, old patents and their models. Uh. Will
(12:06):
you talk about some of those? Are some of your
fate one or two of your favorites, perhaps, sure, Holly.
I I always invite visitors to explore this really large building,
the three different floors, and then uh, make a bee
line for two very special places. One is called the
Loose Foundation Center for American Art, which is where we're
located right now, and there are a couple of mezzanine
(12:30):
levels of shelves and open storage as we like to
call it. There are three thousand works of art on
view across all media. And then tucked in another corner
that you and I spied and walked over a little
bit is the London Conservation Center, the first visible conservation
center in a museum. So the patent models we thought
(12:51):
would be important to still show, and we have an
understanding with the Patent office that a couple of delightful
I would say, both failed models and things we still
enjoy today, like a butter churn or I think you
spied a sewing machine. Did so, these wonderful models are
tagged with a wonderful calligraphy indicating their number, a little
(13:14):
bit of their history. We have reproductions of some of
the drawings that talk about process and use, and we
also have a timeline of of the of the usage
of the of the museum. So it's uh in Bay
twenty one. When you're up on the sort of mezzanine
level of the loose Um Center. Yeah, it's there are
(13:34):
so many wonderful little nooks and crannies all over this building.
But so I'm glad that you directed people where to
go if they want to see that, because it might
be tricky to find it if you don't know the
building terribly well. One of the things I really wanted
to talk to you about is an exhibit that you
guys just opened, which is called Artists Respond and it's
American Art in the Vietnam War One. That's a really
(13:58):
impactful exhibit to walk through. It is not an easy
exhibit to walk through. UM. A lot of those pieces
are not what we would call like pretty art. Um.
They're moving and visceral and very frightening in some ways
and arresting. Will you talk about just that exhibit, why
it is important, why you wanted to have it here
at the Smithsonian Um, and also just you know, your
(14:20):
thoughts on it and how the whole thing came together. Uh,
thank you, Holly. I'm so glad you have um uh
invited me to spend a moment on this exhibition. So
this is a project that's been five years in the making.
Really takes that long to identify works, to hone your
your theories and your messages, to uh write catalog entries
(14:42):
and essays, um, and to ship everything here and uh
and also raise the funds to make it all happen. Uh.
This is an exhibition that is a window into a moment, uh,
a moment of the American experience. The Vietnam War, by
any definition, one of the most contested moments in American life.
(15:03):
It touched our political life, our military experience, our social understanding,
and artists were among those who were grappling with. UM.
This war that for many people arrived in your living room.
It was sort of the first sort of televised war
and UH, so you would be sitting down to dinner
(15:24):
with your family and uh there would be the on
your screen, the notices of how many people were killed
or injured. Uh. And that is reflected in a fabos
piece by Edward keene Holtz that we have on display.
This exhibition looks at a unique time period T. Seventy five,
the sort of key moments, the escalation of the war
(15:45):
as well. And UH it is fundamentally an anti war exhibition.
I think it is. It is not designed to be
UM anti American and I don't see the artists make
that statement. They may question the American government, they may
question the the ideals that are not being upheld. Um
(16:06):
in this moment, there is uh a moment where this
conflict would forever change American art. Why because if you're
making pop art or abstract expressionists art in the preceding decades,
that's not the language where you can talk about loss.
That you can talk about the body, that you can
(16:27):
talk about ideals or American identity or atrocities or places
far you know, far far away. It's really interesting because
I feel like um one growing up in a military
family where my dad was in the Vietnam War and
never wanted to talk about it. It's really enlightening. Again,
I was tiny at that point, so it wasn't as
(16:49):
though I have my own memories of it. But it
is enlightening even for me who I feel like, you know,
I study history and I read up in these things
and have personal connection. But even so, it really captures
what was going on socially in a way that I
think we don't often see. Um. You know, it's an
education in and of itself about what what it felt
(17:10):
like to be an American during the late sixties and
early seventies. That I think is incredibly important. UM. I
wonder what the reception has been in the short time
it's been open. It's only been open like a week
and a half, right, yes, yes, I think people have
understood that this is an important topic. It's really the
first and sort of largest, most comprehensive view of this
(17:31):
moment in time. It is both feels very contemporary, and
the artists were making work in response to that moment.
And again the exhibition has worked only from that a decade.
Much is of course, we we offer some interpretation spaces
and and and talk about, you know, the Maya Lens
Vietnam War Memorial, because we are of course here in
(17:52):
washing d c. And is something that in many ways
brought the country back together again, you know, after the
shattering experience of the war. The exhibition also feels very historic, uh,
in terms of moments that speak to the Democratic Convention,
also a tough moment in Chicago. It's an exhibition that
(18:12):
invites a lot more voices into the story than we
were used to both at the time UM and even
sometimes today. So many more works by women artists, by
UM people of color are included. I think people will
be surprised how many works by veterans are in the exhibition. UH,
and they to grapple with their dual identity as an
(18:35):
artist and as a veteran. It's also show that confronts
you with different media. So there'll be an environment, there
will be graphic posters, there'll be some photojournalist images, there
will be big, bold paintings. There are photographs of performances
UH included. And I would tell you a lot of
(18:56):
these artists weren't necessarily making the art for art world.
They weren't necessarily expecting the works to be displayed, and
a lot of dealers really didn't want to show this work.
And it was work that in many ways was not
always fully formed, was still in process. So you'll find
people you know like Judy Chicago and Chris Burton, and
(19:18):
you'll find people you may know less like Jesse Trevino
um And and Kim Jones, both vets, or somebody as
impactful as Rupert Garcia. So incredible mix. Yeah, the breadth
of artwork in that exhibit. As I was walking through,
I kept going, wait, is there's more down here? Like
(19:39):
it's huge. It is a big show, and I believe
it or not, we had to we we we did
a pretty good job of editing not not everything you
want to borrow is available, and yet people also are
very generous in their loans, and you have to kind
of track down who owns something because it may change
hands during that time. I would also say that art
(19:59):
critics have picked up that this is an exhibition that
is worth writing about and hopefully encouraging people to visit.
So we had early previews in the Washington Post, in
the Wall Street Journal, and a complimentary review in the
Washington Post calling it a must see exhibition. And I
hope it is an exhibition you see with other people,
(20:20):
and that you can both respond to the works of
art and also to your memories or your understanding of
that of that moment again conveyed through art. This I
have to keep reminding people, Holly, it's fundamentally in art exhibition.
Much as we are pausing and trying to remember what
exactly happened in that year of nineteen sixty nine and
(20:40):
what changed again in one I mean, well, we offer
timelines and other moments of context for our visitors, but
it's really the art that we want you to encounter. Yeah,
and you guys have a unique little setup, uh where
people can kind of process where they're at in terms
of like what they've experienced and how they're thinking about
(21:02):
it when you talk a little bit about that, because
it's fascinating, Yes, I uh More and more we ask ourselves,
how do our visitors get ready to see an exhibition
and how do we give them a space for for pause?
So I have asked the curators to uh plan for
each exhibition to have a video a brief moment where
(21:26):
you can stand. You don't necessarily to say we're not
making black box spaces, but some kind of moment where
we can talk about the artist or at the time
period or what was going on historically. Just preparing visitors
and letting every visitor come in sort of at a
a at a same same level of information that that
we're offering. And then in you go through the exhibition
(21:47):
and and the rooms are thematically laid out their numbers.
So we do think that there is a story to
be told as as you move from room one to
to five or so, and then at the end comfortable
seating a pencil, catalogs, books, a timeline, images, revisiting the
(22:08):
artworks in a chronological sense instead of in a thematic sense,
updating the story a little bit, reminding you what has
happened since, and then asking you which works of art
spoke to you, which works about Will you not forget
which works were familiar to you or artists that you
(22:28):
you know in one context but did not ever think
that they would be making art that would speak UM
to the Vietnam war experience. Yeah, it's an amazing thing.
I kind of wish every museum exhibit had it more
and more. I think we, UM, we want to know
more about how our visitors come into the museum. What
(22:48):
is their frame of reference, what is their frame of knowledge? Uh?
And how do we give them uh quiet space for
uh for interpretation, for um, for sorting through before you
again jump into another gallery, a different time moment of
different material. We want people to to rest their eyes too. UM.
(23:11):
I want to shift gears a little bit because I
you mentioned earlier to me before we started your favorite
piece here, and I would love for you to talk
about that a little bit. Oh, Holly, I I have
a favorite piece of the day at the at the museum.
Here we have forty four thousand works of art, and
I'm constantly learning something new. I have the pleasure of
meeting artists and then seeing the work maybe through their eyes,
(23:34):
or when we purchase something UM, that becomes a new favorite.
So remind me, what did I tell you was my
favorite thing that Helen Keller owned? Ah, but it is
not my object. I'm happy to tell you about a
work in the Smithsonian's collection. Again, as I mentioned the
American Art Museum, we hold forty four thousand works of
(23:56):
art interests. But the story so this smith Sony Institution UM,
which is supported by your tax dollars as well as
private contributions, holds a hundred and fifty five million objects.
Imagine that. Now, let's let's imagine that most of those
are maybe bugs in the Natural History Museum. But among
(24:17):
those incredible UM objects that tell us about ourselves, our time,
about um UM, about what we're thinking and feeling, is
an object that I'm very interested in, which is Helen
Keller's watch. Okay, so pause for a second and imagine
(24:38):
what you would think it would look like. It's not
a risk watch. It's a pocket watch. Okay. Was it
made for her? No? Actually it was a gift. Who
would have a watch that would be useful to Allan Keller?
If I told you it was a diplomat, if I
told you it was a pocket watch, if I told
you it was a watch that you could feel the
(25:00):
time on, so that there was an you know, internal
mechanism that where time would be represented on the outside,
so that the diplomat would be diplomatic in ending a
meeting or um being on time someplace. And this was
a gift to Helen Keller that she treasured, and um
(25:21):
makes us think differently about timekeeping and how uh somebody
who overcame so much would find use in something that
other people would could also own and would have routinely.
I love that. It's just such a fascinating little I
don't know, is it a piece of trivia to know
(25:42):
that it's just wonderful? Let me, can I tell you
why I'm interested in the subfcase so I wear another
hat or two or three. At the Smithsonian, aside from
running the American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery, there
are pan institutional or Smithsonian wide initiatives, and one of
them is the American Women's His Your Initiative. I'm the
co chair of this and we are spending the next
(26:06):
five years to pull the threads together of all the
stories of American women through science, through history, through natural history,
through art, through politics, every which way that remarkable women
and also everyday women have contributed to the American experience,
(26:26):
to American history. So there are two cornerstone anchoring exhibitions.
One opens coincidentally on March twenty eight here in the
old Patent Office building, my sister museum, the National Portrait
Gallery is doing a Votes for Women exhibition, obviously years
towards the anniversary of suffrage, which did not give all
women the right to vote. You have to remember, uh
(26:47):
in in the South during the gym Crow period, black
women were not um enfranchised. They would um. Also have
the book end to that opening exhibition in the coming
years is an exhibition called Girlhood It's Complicated, which talks
about growing into your own identity as a woman. So
(27:09):
the phases of um myth making and reality of American
girlhood and so the Helen Keller story is part of
that exhibition, which will travel nationally. That's wonderful, maybe half
a dozen museums. Wow, that'll be fantastic coming up Stephanie
is going to talk a little bit about how even
the frames that art is displayed in are an important
(27:31):
part of an object story. But first we're gonna pause
and have a word from one of the sponsors that
keeps this show going. I know that you are obviously
keenly interested in history. There was also another little bit
of trivia that you told me as we were walking
(27:52):
around talking about conservation and picture frames. Will you talk
about that a little bit? Sure? Uh. One of the
uh special places here at the museum is the Lender
Conservation Center that I may have mentioned earlier. And when
you are up in that space, what you encounter our
floor to ceiling window panes. It is basically a glass box.
(28:16):
And we have five conservation labs that are visible to
UM to anyone who who comes up there. So our
conservators are working diligently away in a framing studio, in
an objects laboratory, in the time based Media space, in
the painting UM lab, and we try to reveal a
(28:39):
little bit about the magic of UM, of of how
we present works of art, how artists create things, and
so in the framing studio you'll see different styles of
frames UM that will explain you know how they're crafted.
Close to the window, you'll see a little sampler of papers.
So there's a gold leaf, there's still relief, there's copper relief,
(29:01):
things like that and UM. More and more, we want
to try to encourage our visitors to understand that there's
something very special to a historic frame, that perhaps the
artist was very intentional about the frame that they wanted,
maybe they even created the frame, or maybe it was
important for a collector to have UM frames that really
(29:24):
showcased UM and and uh showcase the artwork and and
guilding was often for the distinctive purpose of making the
artwork glow with limited UM domestic lighting it would reflect
the lighting and the painting better. So uh, in the future,
we will be adjusting our labels and pointing out to
our visitors when it's an original frame that so much
(29:46):
won't won't won't that I think maybe start or maybe
even stop a conversation. Wait, did you see that original frame? Yeah? Yeah,
I mean I think about There are a couple of
art pieces I have bought fairly recently in New Orleans
where the frames were made out of refuse from the hurricane,
and to me, like that's exactly kind of the same thing.
(30:07):
It's just historically oriented. In a hundred years, someone will
have that tag on and they'll be like, oh, it
will add weight and depth to their understanding of that
piece of artists they're taking it in. So yes, and
and framing Holly is ever evolving. Museums will take frames
off um and say, you know what that frame is
speaks more to the collector and their desire to have
one type of frame versus what was really more typical
(30:32):
for this kind of of an object. Museums go to
great lengths to restore, in some cases recreate frames to
again honor honor the work of art. I love it,
uh you obviously because of your position. I don't I
don't want to get too heavy or make you feel weird.
But obviously you are the steward of a place that
(30:53):
is maintaining and you know, bolstering history and how it's told.
So I wonder is it too weird for you to
think about in a hundred years when someone looks back
on your directorship, what would you like them to remember. Uh? Well,
I appreciate that you understand that these jobs are temporary,
(31:13):
that we're all stewards that Uh, it's UMM. I'm doing
my very best to make sure that I advocate for
visitors that that what we have to share uh is
meaningful to the people who come through our doors. And
I'm happy to report that museum visitation is that at
(31:35):
an all time high. Last year we welcome some two
million visitors and this past year three million visitors as
a huge uptick. Of course, it's a special exhibition, it's
a it's things that capture people's imagination that they want
to see and UH, and we're delighted when when that happens. UH.
And of course we keep asking ourselves who are we
(31:57):
not speaking to? UM? Who who needs different works of
art to feel welcome at the museum and be represented here? Uh?
And I think mostly my impact will be which works
of art I had the good luck of bringing into
the collection and encouraging our curators to be bold and
(32:17):
inviting people to be generous to help us purchase things.
Hopefully my legacy will be some special exhibitions that will
be groundbreaking, like our artists respond American art in the
Vietnam War to nine project or a Burning Man exhibition
at the Renwick Gallery. UH. To ensure the exhibitions are
(32:38):
bigger and bolder. I want to make sure that I'm
educating the next generation of scholars and in our in
our fellowship program, which is going to be fifty years
old next year, oldest largest, uh and premier program in
American art and visual culture, that we care take these
objects in the London Conservation Center, and that mostly Holly
(33:00):
people feel at home, that this is there a museum,
that the Smithsonian American Art Museum is deeply meaningful for
people throughout their lives. I feel like your legacy is
going to be that you opened the doors wider. Well,
that's certainly my charge. Because we are free. That is
an amazing thing to offer all of this for free.
(33:21):
We are open every single day of the year. I
didn't except Christmas and so uh. And in this building,
the old Patent Office, we have later hours. We're open
till seven o'clock at night. The only Smithsonian was such
late hours, and it gives us a different vibe and
a different energy. Uh. And I'm happy to report we
(33:41):
are also among the favorite of the Smithsonian museums in
the sense that after the National Zoo, we have the
highest repeat visitation fifty Our visitors come again, and we're
not on the National Mall. So yeah, we're a destination.
I love it. It speaks to the amazing work that
(34:02):
you've been doing. I cannot thank you enough for having
us today like this has been dreamy well, Holly, I
I tell you, this is a place for the people
of curious minds. This is a place for fun as well.
We want you to get get your hands dirty as
well too. When we've got great family day programs. Let
me tell you about one of my favorite programs if
(34:24):
you don't If you don't mind, we do something that
I've never seen in any other museum, because, believe it
or not, we collect video games. We see video games
as art in terms of the composition, in terms of
the narrative, in terms of the of the elements that
go into it, and they're often have a story component
to them. So every year for some ten years or
(34:46):
so now, we've been doing something called sam Arcade. You
know what an arcade is? The museum, the Fabulous co
Got Courtyard and other spaces in the museum are filled
with all kinds of game and video games. They are free.
We invite people to be polite and only use them
for some fifteen minutes or so, and people are very
(35:07):
good about that. And let me tell you. There are
motorcycles parked outside the museum. There are vans parked outside
of the museum. There are people you know, pouring out
of the metro station, young and old English as their
first language, as their second or third language. We feature
new kinds of games, games that use historic elements and
(35:30):
have a sense of chance, that relate to UH, to
biblical stories. UH a piece about Walden Pond where you
travel through the house and look at historic objects. How
you go into the woods and have to chop down
a tree to make the log cabin. Amazing kind of
(35:52):
fantasy games that you play by yourself or with others.
And UM, best of all, you wander through the rest
the museum as you're as you're going on. It's a
two day event. We have over ten thousand people come
and UH it invites us to think about doing the
next Art of Video Games exhibition, both at the museum
(36:12):
and to send around the country. I will be here
for that again. The American experience. You'll get tired of
seeing an American creativity for sure. I love it again,
Thank you so much, what a delight for me my
pleasure come back. I feel so spoiled. I'd like to
say tell everyone, and I mean that not in the
tell everyone to come, but tell everyone that you want
to come with them. Here again, back to the social
(36:34):
experience of museums, I feel like it is kind of
impossible to not want to run to the Smithsonian American
Art Museum after hearing Stephanie Stevish talk about it. If
you'd like to run to the museum and you want
to check out the exhibit that we mentioned in the show,
Artists Respond American Art in the Vietnam War nine to nineteen.
(36:54):
That exhibit is open now and it will run until
August eighteen. We are also going to be sure to
include a link to their way site with information about
that exhibit in our show notes. Super big thanks once
again to Stephanie for being on the show. I have
a quick little bit of listener mail if you'd like cool.
I'm on a roll where I really am enjoying our
mails from from educators. So this is from our listener Jessica,
(37:17):
who writes Hi, Holly and Tracy. I am a full
time special ed teacher and a part time history buff.
I started listening to your podcast a few months ago,
and I'm constantly amazed by the amount of content stuff
you missed in history classes covered. My goal is to
be able to give you guys an idea for a
show someday, but every time I come up with one,
I find that you've covered it already, so then I
quickly find it in the archives and listened voraciously. Recently,
(37:40):
I was reading the book Brave Harriet by Marissa Moss
with my students. This introduced them to Harriet Quimby, who
was the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
Not surprisingly, after a quick search of the archives, I
found that Harriet was mentioned in a previous podcast back
in so I quickly downloaded the show and shared it
with my students and they were so excited to learn
more about this American aviator. Thank you so much for
(38:03):
all that you do to keep stories like these relevant
and interest younger generations of history lovers. Um, thank you
so much, Jessica. Again, I have to say, um, thank
you for being an educator because we need those and
it is a noble endeavor. I certainly feel if you
would like to write to us, you can do so
at History Podcast at how ste works dot com, or
you can come and visit us anywhere on social media
(38:24):
where we are Missed in History. We're also at missed
in History dot com as our website, and all of
the shows that have ever existed can be found were
right there. If you would like to subscribe to the show,
you can do that on the I Heart Radio app,
at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Stuffy
(38:45):
Missed in History Class is a production of I heart
Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts. For my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
I am super duper excited because I was recently fortunate
enough to visit the Smithsonian American Art Museum and sit
(00:22):
down with the director, Stephanie Steepish for a chat. And
this interview isn't focused on anyone's specific thing. We talk
about Stephanie's work and some of the museums exhibit, but
also just what museums offer the world and how they
fit into history. Stephanie has a passion for her work
and for sharing art with a public that's completely infectious,
and what she really cares about is how people engage
(00:43):
with the museum. So when she first sat down with
Holly for the interview, she asked Collie a question right
out of the gate. Find out what Holly thought of
the time at the museum this morning. Yeah, she's a
little embarrassing because I might have cried in front of
some art um. We're going to pick up this interview
with my answer, and then we'll start off my Inner
You with Stephanie, which quickly opens up into the history
of the building that houses the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
(01:08):
So it's been amazing. I um mentioned to you before
we came in that I had my little tearful moment
with the Edmonia Lewis sculpture because I'm a great admirer
of her in her life story is very inspiring. Uh
So that in and of itself was my great thing.
And because we're here before it opens, and to like
have private time with a piece of art like that
is beyond special to me. What I want to hear
(01:30):
about from you, though, is there are some things that
you showed me that we walked around together doing and
some things that I walked around on my own experiencing,
which I will ask you about in a bit. But
before we get to any of that, I want to
ask you how you landed here, Like, how does one
become the lead of a place like this? Well, I
(01:51):
would tell you, Holly, I have the greatest job possible.
Uh it is a job where every day I'm working
with really talented, aative people. And I'm not just talking
about my phenomenal staff, but artists who come here, people
who have a passion and collect people who want to
write about what we present, art critics and thinkers, uh,
(02:13):
and also people who have never been here before, as
well as people who love this place deeply and and
have their five favorite objects, favorite places in the museum.
So how do you grow up and become a museum director? Well,
I want to tell you the Smithsonian is in many
ways the Harvard of Art museums, because we are this
(02:33):
big family of museums. Were the largest research and museum
complex in the world. We are these sort of official
national museums of different subject matters. So in my case
it's American art as well as I run the Renwick Gallery,
which is the National Museum of Craft uh. And then
you go through the National Museum of African Art and
(02:54):
the Cooper Hewitt and on and on, all these specialties.
I grew up in museums. I fell at home in museums.
I studied art history and UM. There are different pathways
I could have taught. I could have worked at an
auction house or a gallery, could have written. But when
you work in a museum, you get to touch that
many more lives. Uh. You get to constantly learn. It's
(03:18):
a graduate seminar with every special exhibition we do. When
we make really tough decisions about which works of art
we're going to accept or with limited dollars purchase, we
are making an important statement about time and place. And
I like to say, in museums we're in the forever business.
(03:40):
Oh that's beautiful. So there's a there's a sacred duty.
And I would tell you I often tell my staff
that museums are a team sport. Yes I have the
good luck of being the director, but it's really a
nobody can do this work alone. It's just it's just
too many facets to um to have any single person,
(04:00):
even even our curators who think up these wonderful projects.
It depends on so many arms and legs to get
something done here. I love it. And I mean, just
in our short time walking around with some of your staff,
that's abundantly clear that just everyone here one is incredibly smart,
incredibly engaged, like trying to even like just the people
(04:23):
that are walking through doing maintenance stuff. Nobody is like
just clocking in and doing their joke like they all
seem to really holly. Museums are generally happy places, right.
Just people come with some leisure time, They come with
their friends, they come with their family, they come on
special occasions, they come to share things that are deeply
meaningful to them. They come for fun, they come for surprise.
(04:47):
Hopefully they leave remembering something that they saw. That that
that I like to think that, Um, the gift artists
give us when we encounter to their work and really
spend time with the work, is uh that artists change
the way we see the world. Yeah, one one object,
(05:09):
one artwork at a time. So the building we're in
as well, you gave me a quick version earlier. You
took us into the secret room, which is off of
what appears to initially be a very standard sort of
coat room, and then there's a secret room which has
some really cool insights into the building's history. Will you
talk about this building's history and how it how it's
(05:30):
evolved over the years to where it is now. Sure,
it's a spectacular building. It spans too city blocks seventh
to ninth Street, and uh is boundaried by F and
G Streets, and so we have entrances on both sides.
And that secret room you'll find on the F Street entrance.
As you perhaps hang up your code or leave your bag,
(05:51):
you'll see there's a little chamber in the back where
we have left uncovered the um the structure of the building,
because this was built as the Patent Office for the
United States, the third federal building built after the White
House and the Capital, and you have to imagine this
(06:14):
must be a very important building. It's where American entrepreneurship
and creativity is at home, and it's a pretty good
choice to locate the National Museum of American Art. So
the building originally housed shelves, rows and rows of shelves
of patent models. President Andrew Jackson signed legislation about around
(06:36):
patent law which mandated that as an inventor, you had
to bring forward a model of your of your invention
plus drawings and explain how this was made, and that
future inventors could come and look and say, oh, actually,
what I have is an improvement, is a variation on
an existing patent. Again, you have to be your patent
(06:59):
has to be review. Even today, and recently I heard, Holly,
you might find fascinating the ten million US patent was
issued recently, ten million. It's astonishing to think about all
of the ingenuity that the preceding UH numbers all contained.
In many cases, like it's it's just such a great
(07:20):
deal about the never ending quest to make new things
and fill gaps that we need. And it's sort of
beautiful indeed. And and this historic building also went through
some transformations. It was built to be fireproof, so that
meant originally, you know, stay away from wooden beams and
work with iron tresses and such. And built in the
(07:40):
Greek Revival style. It during the Civil War housed hospital.
Walt Whitman would come here and UH read to injured soldiers.
UH and UH in its incarnation as the Patent Office,
the very important to Clara Barton worked here. We would
(08:03):
know her for two important reasons. Of course, she was
the founder of the American Red Cross, and in today's
important conversation about gender equality, she was the first government
um employee who was given equal pay for equal work.
Clara Barton here at the old Patent Novice And it
(08:24):
also housed earlier iterations and collections of the Smithsonian, and then,
thankfully in nine after a significant restoration, was the official
home for UH, the Smithsonian, American Art Museum, and our
sister museum, the National Portrait Gallery. And it's so beautiful.
Walking around, I spied something very cool which has been
(08:47):
retained despite updates and things being renovated. There is a
tiny piece of graffiti that you guys kept in now
it's almost its own little secret artwork exhibit. Will you
talk about that a little bit? Yes, I I think
museums have wonderful objects that we caretake and hopefully we
display it in intriguing, in beautiful ways, provocative ways sometimes.
(09:10):
And yet let's not forget the house in which we sit,
whether it's a contemporary building. And they're wonderful star architects
for building great museums these days, but many museums are
located in historic buildings, you know, repurposed. And so if
we can bring a little bit of the magic out,
if we can remind people that UM that these great
(09:31):
UH facilities had important roles. Not only we were a
Civil War hospital, but we were the home for Abraham
Lincoln's second inaugural ball, because it was one of the
largest spaces in Washington City for such an event. Yeah,
I do we have any insight into who the mystery
HF that I wish I could tell you. I wish
(09:52):
I could tell you that it was Walt Whitman himself. No, UM,
not the case, however, Walt Whitman. Uh, there are echoes
of women around the city. So I invite you to
go to the du Pont Circle train metro exit and
etched in the entry and exit tunnel is the Walt
Whitman poem about his days reading to Civil War. Um,
(10:15):
you know injured. Yeah, I love it so for listeners.
It's a tiny little piece of like a window frame.
It just has the initial C HF carved in it
and then it stated August eight sixty four. And you
guys have put this beautiful just a little glass over
it and it It is sort of funny because when
(10:35):
you look at it straight on, it almost looks like
you just mounted a picture on the wall. But then
when you see it from the side, you realize it's
just protecting something that's part of this building's history. I'm
so glad you found it, Holly. We uh want people
to look closely at works of art and then also
explore a little bit of the building. So when you're
in the Great Hall, which was where Lincoln's inauguration was,
(10:58):
and if you look at the floor, it feels different
than in the rest of the building. You're not on
marble floors. You're not even on wood gallery floors. You're
on beautiful tiled floors. And because that is a completely
different style, there was a fire in seven in this building,
and so a new architectural style was added to our
Greek Revival building, something called Neo Renaissance, and um, so
(11:22):
a very different grandeur was was added to the building,
gave it a bit of an update. I hope everyone
who visits the Smithsonian American Art Museum seeks out that
little bit of preserved graffiti that we talked about. It
just feels so unique and special, and it tethers the
building to its past. Coming up, Stephanie will share two
stories about places in the building. She thinks they're extra
(11:43):
special and that visitors should make sure to visit. But
first we will take a quick sponsor break. You mentioned
that this was at one point the U. S. Patent Office,
and you still have on display some unique pieces that
are you know, old patents and their models. Uh. Will
(12:06):
you talk about some of those? Are some of your
fate one or two of your favorites, perhaps, sure, Holly.
I I always invite visitors to explore this really large building,
the three different floors, and then uh, make a bee
line for two very special places. One is called the
Loose Foundation Center for American Art, which is where we're
located right now, and there are a couple of mezzanine
(12:30):
levels of shelves and open storage as we like to
call it. There are three thousand works of art on
view across all media. And then tucked in another corner
that you and I spied and walked over a little
bit is the London Conservation Center, the first visible conservation
center in a museum. So the patent models we thought
(12:51):
would be important to still show, and we have an
understanding with the Patent office that a couple of delightful
I would say, both failed models and things we still
enjoy today, like a butter churn or I think you
spied a sewing machine. Did so, these wonderful models are
tagged with a wonderful calligraphy indicating their number, a little
(13:14):
bit of their history. We have reproductions of some of
the drawings that talk about process and use, and we
also have a timeline of of the of the usage
of the of the museum. So it's uh in Bay
twenty one. When you're up on the sort of mezzanine
level of the loose Um Center. Yeah, it's there are
(13:34):
so many wonderful little nooks and crannies all over this building.
But so I'm glad that you directed people where to
go if they want to see that, because it might
be tricky to find it if you don't know the
building terribly well. One of the things I really wanted
to talk to you about is an exhibit that you
guys just opened, which is called Artists Respond and it's
American Art in the Vietnam War One. That's a really
(13:58):
impactful exhibit to walk through. It is not an easy
exhibit to walk through. UM. A lot of those pieces
are not what we would call like pretty art. Um.
They're moving and visceral and very frightening in some ways
and arresting. Will you talk about just that exhibit, why
it is important, why you wanted to have it here
at the Smithsonian Um, and also just you know, your
(14:20):
thoughts on it and how the whole thing came together. Uh,
thank you, Holly. I'm so glad you have um uh
invited me to spend a moment on this exhibition. So
this is a project that's been five years in the making.
Really takes that long to identify works, to hone your
your theories and your messages, to uh write catalog entries
(14:42):
and essays, um, and to ship everything here and uh
and also raise the funds to make it all happen. Uh.
This is an exhibition that is a window into a moment, uh,
a moment of the American experience. The Vietnam War, by
any definition, one of the most contested moments in American life.
(15:03):
It touched our political life, our military experience, our social understanding,
and artists were among those who were grappling with. UM.
This war that for many people arrived in your living room.
It was sort of the first sort of televised war
and UH, so you would be sitting down to dinner
(15:24):
with your family and uh there would be the on
your screen, the notices of how many people were killed
or injured. Uh. And that is reflected in a fabos
piece by Edward keene Holtz that we have on display.
This exhibition looks at a unique time period T. Seventy five,
the sort of key moments, the escalation of the war
(15:45):
as well. And UH it is fundamentally an anti war exhibition.
I think it is. It is not designed to be
UM anti American and I don't see the artists make
that statement. They may question the American government, they may
question the the ideals that are not being upheld. Um
(16:06):
in this moment, there is uh a moment where this
conflict would forever change American art. Why because if you're
making pop art or abstract expressionists art in the preceding decades,
that's not the language where you can talk about loss.
That you can talk about the body, that you can
(16:27):
talk about ideals or American identity or atrocities or places
far you know, far far away. It's really interesting because
I feel like um one growing up in a military
family where my dad was in the Vietnam War and
never wanted to talk about it. It's really enlightening. Again,
I was tiny at that point, so it wasn't as
(16:49):
though I have my own memories of it. But it
is enlightening even for me who I feel like, you know,
I study history and I read up in these things
and have personal connection. But even so, it really captures
what was going on socially in a way that I
think we don't often see. Um. You know, it's an
education in and of itself about what what it felt
(17:10):
like to be an American during the late sixties and
early seventies. That I think is incredibly important. UM. I
wonder what the reception has been in the short time
it's been open. It's only been open like a week
and a half, right, yes, yes, I think people have
understood that this is an important topic. It's really the
first and sort of largest, most comprehensive view of this
(17:31):
moment in time. It is both feels very contemporary, and
the artists were making work in response to that moment.
And again the exhibition has worked only from that a decade.
Much is of course, we we offer some interpretation spaces
and and and talk about, you know, the Maya Lens
Vietnam War Memorial, because we are of course here in
(17:52):
washing d c. And is something that in many ways
brought the country back together again, you know, after the
shattering experience of the war. The exhibition also feels very historic, uh,
in terms of moments that speak to the Democratic Convention,
also a tough moment in Chicago. It's an exhibition that
(18:12):
invites a lot more voices into the story than we
were used to both at the time UM and even
sometimes today. So many more works by women artists, by
UM people of color are included. I think people will
be surprised how many works by veterans are in the exhibition. UH,
and they to grapple with their dual identity as an
(18:35):
artist and as a veteran. It's also show that confronts
you with different media. So there'll be an environment, there
will be graphic posters, there'll be some photojournalist images, there
will be big, bold paintings. There are photographs of performances
UH included. And I would tell you a lot of
(18:56):
these artists weren't necessarily making the art for art world.
They weren't necessarily expecting the works to be displayed, and
a lot of dealers really didn't want to show this work.
And it was work that in many ways was not
always fully formed, was still in process. So you'll find
people you know like Judy Chicago and Chris Burton, and
(19:18):
you'll find people you may know less like Jesse Trevino
um And and Kim Jones, both vets, or somebody as
impactful as Rupert Garcia. So incredible mix. Yeah, the breadth
of artwork in that exhibit. As I was walking through,
I kept going, wait, is there's more down here? Like
(19:39):
it's huge. It is a big show, and I believe
it or not, we had to we we we did
a pretty good job of editing not not everything you
want to borrow is available, and yet people also are
very generous in their loans, and you have to kind
of track down who owns something because it may change
hands during that time. I would also say that art
(19:59):
critics have picked up that this is an exhibition that
is worth writing about and hopefully encouraging people to visit.
So we had early previews in the Washington Post, in
the Wall Street Journal, and a complimentary review in the
Washington Post calling it a must see exhibition. And I
hope it is an exhibition you see with other people,
(20:20):
and that you can both respond to the works of
art and also to your memories or your understanding of
that of that moment again conveyed through art. This I
have to keep reminding people, Holly, it's fundamentally in art exhibition.
Much as we are pausing and trying to remember what
exactly happened in that year of nineteen sixty nine and
(20:40):
what changed again in one I mean, well, we offer
timelines and other moments of context for our visitors, but
it's really the art that we want you to encounter. Yeah,
and you guys have a unique little setup, uh where
people can kind of process where they're at in terms
of like what they've experienced and how they're thinking about
(21:02):
it when you talk a little bit about that, because
it's fascinating, Yes, I uh More and more we ask ourselves,
how do our visitors get ready to see an exhibition
and how do we give them a space for for pause?
So I have asked the curators to uh plan for
each exhibition to have a video a brief moment where
(21:26):
you can stand. You don't necessarily to say we're not
making black box spaces, but some kind of moment where
we can talk about the artist or at the time
period or what was going on historically. Just preparing visitors
and letting every visitor come in sort of at a
a at a same same level of information that that
we're offering. And then in you go through the exhibition
(21:47):
and and the rooms are thematically laid out their numbers.
So we do think that there is a story to
be told as as you move from room one to
to five or so, and then at the end comfortable
seating a pencil, catalogs, books, a timeline, images, revisiting the
(22:08):
artworks in a chronological sense instead of in a thematic sense,
updating the story a little bit, reminding you what has
happened since, and then asking you which works of art
spoke to you, which works about Will you not forget
which works were familiar to you or artists that you
(22:28):
you know in one context but did not ever think
that they would be making art that would speak UM
to the Vietnam war experience. Yeah, it's an amazing thing.
I kind of wish every museum exhibit had it more
and more. I think we, UM, we want to know
more about how our visitors come into the museum. What
(22:48):
is their frame of reference, what is their frame of knowledge? Uh?
And how do we give them uh quiet space for
uh for interpretation, for um, for sorting through before you
again jump into another gallery, a different time moment of
different material. We want people to to rest their eyes too. UM.
(23:11):
I want to shift gears a little bit because I
you mentioned earlier to me before we started your favorite
piece here, and I would love for you to talk
about that a little bit. Oh, Holly, I I have
a favorite piece of the day at the at the museum.
Here we have forty four thousand works of art, and
I'm constantly learning something new. I have the pleasure of
meeting artists and then seeing the work maybe through their eyes,
(23:34):
or when we purchase something UM, that becomes a new favorite.
So remind me, what did I tell you was my
favorite thing that Helen Keller owned? Ah, but it is
not my object. I'm happy to tell you about a
work in the Smithsonian's collection. Again, as I mentioned the
American Art Museum, we hold forty four thousand works of
(23:56):
art interests. But the story so this smith Sony Institution UM,
which is supported by your tax dollars as well as
private contributions, holds a hundred and fifty five million objects.
Imagine that. Now, let's let's imagine that most of those
are maybe bugs in the Natural History Museum. But among
(24:17):
those incredible UM objects that tell us about ourselves, our time,
about um UM, about what we're thinking and feeling, is
an object that I'm very interested in, which is Helen
Keller's watch. Okay, so pause for a second and imagine
(24:38):
what you would think it would look like. It's not
a risk watch. It's a pocket watch. Okay. Was it
made for her? No? Actually it was a gift. Who
would have a watch that would be useful to Allan Keller?
If I told you it was a diplomat, if I
told you it was a pocket watch, if I told
you it was a watch that you could feel the
(25:00):
time on, so that there was an you know, internal
mechanism that where time would be represented on the outside,
so that the diplomat would be diplomatic in ending a
meeting or um being on time someplace. And this was
a gift to Helen Keller that she treasured, and um
(25:21):
makes us think differently about timekeeping and how uh somebody
who overcame so much would find use in something that
other people would could also own and would have routinely.
I love that. It's just such a fascinating little I
don't know, is it a piece of trivia to know
(25:42):
that it's just wonderful? Let me, can I tell you
why I'm interested in the subfcase so I wear another
hat or two or three. At the Smithsonian, aside from
running the American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery, there
are pan institutional or Smithsonian wide initiatives, and one of
them is the American Women's His Your Initiative. I'm the
co chair of this and we are spending the next
(26:06):
five years to pull the threads together of all the
stories of American women through science, through history, through natural history,
through art, through politics, every which way that remarkable women
and also everyday women have contributed to the American experience,
(26:26):
to American history. So there are two cornerstone anchoring exhibitions.
One opens coincidentally on March twenty eight here in the
old Patent Office building, my sister museum, the National Portrait
Gallery is doing a Votes for Women exhibition, obviously years
towards the anniversary of suffrage, which did not give all
women the right to vote. You have to remember, uh
(26:47):
in in the South during the gym Crow period, black
women were not um enfranchised. They would um. Also have
the book end to that opening exhibition in the coming
years is an exhibition called Girlhood It's Complicated, which talks
about growing into your own identity as a woman. So
(27:09):
the phases of um myth making and reality of American
girlhood and so the Helen Keller story is part of
that exhibition, which will travel nationally. That's wonderful, maybe half
a dozen museums. Wow, that'll be fantastic coming up Stephanie
is going to talk a little bit about how even
the frames that art is displayed in are an important
(27:31):
part of an object story. But first we're gonna pause
and have a word from one of the sponsors that
keeps this show going. I know that you are obviously
keenly interested in history. There was also another little bit
of trivia that you told me as we were walking
(27:52):
around talking about conservation and picture frames. Will you talk
about that a little bit? Sure? Uh. One of the
uh special places here at the museum is the Lender
Conservation Center that I may have mentioned earlier. And when
you are up in that space, what you encounter our
floor to ceiling window panes. It is basically a glass box.
(28:16):
And we have five conservation labs that are visible to
UM to anyone who who comes up there. So our
conservators are working diligently away in a framing studio, in
an objects laboratory, in the time based Media space, in
the painting UM lab, and we try to reveal a
(28:39):
little bit about the magic of UM, of of how
we present works of art, how artists create things, and
so in the framing studio you'll see different styles of
frames UM that will explain you know how they're crafted.
Close to the window, you'll see a little sampler of papers.
So there's a gold leaf, there's still relief, there's copper relief,
(29:01):
things like that and UM. More and more, we want
to try to encourage our visitors to understand that there's
something very special to a historic frame, that perhaps the
artist was very intentional about the frame that they wanted,
maybe they even created the frame, or maybe it was
important for a collector to have UM frames that really
(29:24):
showcased UM and and uh showcase the artwork and and
guilding was often for the distinctive purpose of making the
artwork glow with limited UM domestic lighting it would reflect
the lighting and the painting better. So uh, in the future,
we will be adjusting our labels and pointing out to
our visitors when it's an original frame that so much
(29:46):
won't won't won't that I think maybe start or maybe
even stop a conversation. Wait, did you see that original frame? Yeah? Yeah,
I mean I think about There are a couple of
art pieces I have bought fairly recently in New Orleans
where the frames were made out of refuse from the hurricane,
and to me, like that's exactly kind of the same thing.
(30:07):
It's just historically oriented. In a hundred years, someone will
have that tag on and they'll be like, oh, it
will add weight and depth to their understanding of that
piece of artists they're taking it in. So yes, and
and framing Holly is ever evolving. Museums will take frames
off um and say, you know what that frame is
speaks more to the collector and their desire to have
one type of frame versus what was really more typical
(30:32):
for this kind of of an object. Museums go to
great lengths to restore, in some cases recreate frames to
again honor honor the work of art. I love it,
uh you obviously because of your position. I don't I
don't want to get too heavy or make you feel weird.
But obviously you are the steward of a place that
(30:53):
is maintaining and you know, bolstering history and how it's told.
So I wonder is it too weird for you to
think about in a hundred years when someone looks back
on your directorship, what would you like them to remember. Uh? Well,
I appreciate that you understand that these jobs are temporary,
(31:13):
that we're all stewards that Uh, it's UMM. I'm doing
my very best to make sure that I advocate for
visitors that that what we have to share uh is
meaningful to the people who come through our doors. And
I'm happy to report that museum visitation is that at
(31:35):
an all time high. Last year we welcome some two
million visitors and this past year three million visitors as
a huge uptick. Of course, it's a special exhibition, it's
a it's things that capture people's imagination that they want
to see and UH, and we're delighted when when that happens. UH.
And of course we keep asking ourselves who are we
(31:57):
not speaking to? UM? Who who needs different works of
art to feel welcome at the museum and be represented here? Uh?
And I think mostly my impact will be which works
of art I had the good luck of bringing into
the collection and encouraging our curators to be bold and
(32:17):
inviting people to be generous to help us purchase things.
Hopefully my legacy will be some special exhibitions that will
be groundbreaking, like our artists respond American art in the
Vietnam War to nine project or a Burning Man exhibition
at the Renwick Gallery. UH. To ensure the exhibitions are
(32:38):
bigger and bolder. I want to make sure that I'm
educating the next generation of scholars and in our in
our fellowship program, which is going to be fifty years
old next year, oldest largest, uh and premier program in
American art and visual culture, that we care take these
objects in the London Conservation Center, and that mostly Holly
(33:00):
people feel at home, that this is there a museum,
that the Smithsonian American Art Museum is deeply meaningful for
people throughout their lives. I feel like your legacy is
going to be that you opened the doors wider. Well,
that's certainly my charge. Because we are free. That is
an amazing thing to offer all of this for free.
(33:21):
We are open every single day of the year. I
didn't except Christmas and so uh. And in this building,
the old Patent Office, we have later hours. We're open
till seven o'clock at night. The only Smithsonian was such
late hours, and it gives us a different vibe and
a different energy. Uh. And I'm happy to report we
(33:41):
are also among the favorite of the Smithsonian museums in
the sense that after the National Zoo, we have the
highest repeat visitation fifty Our visitors come again, and we're
not on the National Mall. So yeah, we're a destination.
I love it. It speaks to the amazing work that
(34:02):
you've been doing. I cannot thank you enough for having
us today like this has been dreamy well, Holly, I
I tell you, this is a place for the people
of curious minds. This is a place for fun as well.
We want you to get get your hands dirty as
well too. When we've got great family day programs. Let
me tell you about one of my favorite programs if
(34:24):
you don't If you don't mind, we do something that
I've never seen in any other museum, because, believe it
or not, we collect video games. We see video games
as art in terms of the composition, in terms of
the narrative, in terms of the of the elements that
go into it, and they're often have a story component
to them. So every year for some ten years or
(34:46):
so now, we've been doing something called sam Arcade. You
know what an arcade is? The museum, the Fabulous co
Got Courtyard and other spaces in the museum are filled
with all kinds of game and video games. They are free.
We invite people to be polite and only use them
for some fifteen minutes or so, and people are very
(35:07):
good about that. And let me tell you. There are
motorcycles parked outside the museum. There are vans parked outside
of the museum. There are people you know, pouring out
of the metro station, young and old English as their
first language, as their second or third language. We feature
new kinds of games, games that use historic elements and
(35:30):
have a sense of chance, that relate to UH, to
biblical stories. UH a piece about Walden Pond where you
travel through the house and look at historic objects. How
you go into the woods and have to chop down
a tree to make the log cabin. Amazing kind of
(35:52):
fantasy games that you play by yourself or with others.
And UM, best of all, you wander through the rest
the museum as you're as you're going on. It's a
two day event. We have over ten thousand people come
and UH it invites us to think about doing the
next Art of Video Games exhibition, both at the museum
(36:12):
and to send around the country. I will be here
for that again. The American experience. You'll get tired of
seeing an American creativity for sure. I love it again,
Thank you so much, what a delight for me my
pleasure come back. I feel so spoiled. I'd like to
say tell everyone, and I mean that not in the
tell everyone to come, but tell everyone that you want
to come with them. Here again, back to the social
(36:34):
experience of museums, I feel like it is kind of
impossible to not want to run to the Smithsonian American
Art Museum after hearing Stephanie Stevish talk about it. If
you'd like to run to the museum and you want
to check out the exhibit that we mentioned in the show,
Artists Respond American Art in the Vietnam War nine to nineteen.
(36:54):
That exhibit is open now and it will run until
August eighteen. We are also going to be sure to
include a link to their way site with information about
that exhibit in our show notes. Super big thanks once
again to Stephanie for being on the show. I have
a quick little bit of listener mail if you'd like cool.
I'm on a roll where I really am enjoying our
mails from from educators. So this is from our listener Jessica,
(37:17):
who writes Hi, Holly and Tracy. I am a full
time special ed teacher and a part time history buff.
I started listening to your podcast a few months ago,
and I'm constantly amazed by the amount of content stuff
you missed in history classes covered. My goal is to
be able to give you guys an idea for a
show someday, but every time I come up with one,
I find that you've covered it already, so then I
quickly find it in the archives and listened voraciously. Recently,
(37:40):
I was reading the book Brave Harriet by Marissa Moss
with my students. This introduced them to Harriet Quimby, who
was the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
Not surprisingly, after a quick search of the archives, I
found that Harriet was mentioned in a previous podcast back
in so I quickly downloaded the show and shared it
with my students and they were so excited to learn
more about this American aviator. Thank you so much for
(38:03):
all that you do to keep stories like these relevant
and interest younger generations of history lovers. Um, thank you
so much, Jessica. Again, I have to say, um, thank
you for being an educator because we need those and
it is a noble endeavor. I certainly feel if you
would like to write to us, you can do so
at History Podcast at how ste works dot com, or
you can come and visit us anywhere on social media
(38:24):
where we are Missed in History. We're also at missed
in History dot com as our website, and all of
the shows that have ever existed can be found were
right there. If you would like to subscribe to the show,
you can do that on the I Heart Radio app,
at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Stuffy
(38:45):
Missed in History Class is a production of I heart
Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts. For my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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