Phillip Bahar is the new director of Michigan State University’s Eil and Edythe Broad Art Musuem.
Bahar shares his background and tells why he wants to lead The Broad. He talks about the museum’s evolving mission and shares his short- and long-term goals for The Broad. He discusses challenges and opportunities ahead for The Broad and for the entire arts industry.
Conversation Highlights:
(0:20) – What’s your background?
(1:22) – Is there something unique about a museum in a university setting?
(2:03) – Do you have any experience with MSU, the state of Michigan, and/or The Broad?
(2:46) – What attracted you to leading The Broad at MSU?
(3:39) – What’s the mission of the museum, and what’s your vision for evolving the mission?
(4:56) – What are some of your short- and long-term goals for The Broad?
(6:15) – What are some of the challenges and opportunities ahead for The Broad and the entire arts industry?
(7:05) – What are some current or future exhibits you’d like to put on people’s radars?
(8:14) – What are some of the Broad’s priorities in MSU’s Uncommon Will. Far Better World campaign?
(9:53) – How would you like faculty, staff, student and the public to interact with the museum?
(11:27) – Final thoughts.
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Conversation Transcript:
Speaker 1:
On this episode of MSU today, it's great to welcome the new director of the Eli and Edith Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Phillip Bahar. Phillip, great to meet you and welcome to the university and the program.
Speaker 2:
Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here at MSU and at the Broad,
Speaker 1:
Could you start, give us a little bit of your background that's led you to MSU?
Speaker 2:
Sure. I've had my entire career in the arts and museums. I just came from Chicago where I led the Chicago Humanities Festival. We'd put on about a hundred programs a year, artists, authors, journalists, policy makers, other thinkers from across the world, and a lot of academics. So I'm very close to working with the university systems and working with thought leaders in their fields. And before that, I was at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which is one of the great contemporary art museums in the world. Film Series performing arts series. Really amazing exhibitions in certain ways. Very similar to the Broad, really thinking about the museum as a multidisciplinary space, a space for artists to spread their wings and do new work, but also an opportunity for audiences to really experiencing experience, things that are new and that might change how they think about the world.
Speaker 1:
And is there something unique about a museum in a university setting?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, because MSU has a faculty, they have faculty with such a wide array of experiences and knowledge, and I think that's one of the things that actually makes the broad very special, is that we do a lot of partnerships with faculty. So they bring their research, they bring their areas of inquiry into our space with us, and then we get to play with the collection and with artists to figure out, okay, how can we tell a story that's through the lens of what they're thinking about, but very much true to who we are and to who the collection is and the artists we present.
Speaker 1:
And do you happen to have any past experience with either MSU, the state of Michigan or maybe the broad itself?
Speaker 2:
I hadn't had direct experience, but obviously I'd been following the broad from its founding. The Zaha Hadid building was a big deal when it was first built, the first free standing building by that architect in America. And then also the exhibitions over the last 12 years, I've periodically dipped in and seen what's been going on there from afar. There have been a lot of actually Chicago artists that have passed through the Broad. So along the way I've kind of been in Chicago seeing Chicago artists kind of starting to expand their reach and many of them have ended up here. Yeah,
Speaker 1:
That's cool. So what attracted you to leading the broad here at MSU?
Speaker 2:
Certainly I think museums are magical spaces, and I think the broad from the exterior to the experience inside is really special. The collection is a historic collection, but we're a very much contemporary institution, and that's what drew me to it. As a museum, we're focusing on issues that really matter to us as individuals as a society today, but we have this lens and this ability to dip into our past while looking at our present. One of the great things I think of the humanities, but certainly of museums is that ability to bring the present to life through a different lens and maybe give you a different perspective on how to think about things or how to see things.
Speaker 1:
And you've been discussing it, Phillip, but talk a little bit about the mission of the museum and then your vision for evolving that mission.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, the broad really has, I'd say two core areas of focus. One is obviously the MSU community. We want art to be essential to all the students on campus and the faculty on campus. That essential element might be once a year coming and having an experience. It might be coming every week, it might be coming every day. But really making art a central part of the MSU experience as part one and then more in the region and in the Lansing East Lansing community. Being the primary art museum in this area is a really important responsibility and we take it seriously and it allows us to think about what kind of exhibition should we be putting on that serve both the campus and the community. Sometimes one, sometimes other. Always both, right? So the last exhibit we closed maybe a couple months ago was called Farmland, and it was a look through the lens of artists on food production, on agriculture. So there was a really beautiful connection to where we are, the kind of institution we are as a university, but then having artists really think about, okay, what do these things mean to us in our daily lives?
Speaker 1:
Phillip, you're just getting started, but do you have some sort of short-term goals as you get started? And if you've had even some time, maybe some longer term ones down the road?
Speaker 2:
The short-term goals is
Speaker 2:
Just to meet
Speaker 2:
People. I've been meeting a lot of people, both the staff, faculty, deans, et cetera. So that's a big priority in the short term.
Speaker 1:
Right?
Speaker 2:
In the long-term, it's really about how can we continue to build on the Broad's amazing legacy, interacting and connecting with more individual students, interacting with partners across the region and nationally because also at a national level, there are only so many university art museums. And I think some of the things we're doing...