AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

Talking to artists - learning about their materials, practices, and desires for how their artwork should live, age, and be treated- was, thirty years ago, a novel concept.  In 1990, faced with the unique challenges presented by the care of contemporary art, Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, then the Chief Conservator at the Menil Collection, initiated what evolved into the Artists Documentation Program (ADP).  The program grew with time, developing into a partnership with the Whitney Museum of American Art after Mancusi-Ungaro relocated there in 2001, at which point Brad Epley was appointed Chief Conservator at the Menil.  Until their departures in 2023, the program continued under their co-direction. At this juncture Matthew Skopek, the Melva Bucksbaum Director of Conservation at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Dr. Corina Rogge, Director of Conservation at the Menil Collection assumed co-directorship. 

This transition offered an opportunity to reevaluate the program, redefine its mission and values, and outline a three-year strategic plan.  Rather than siloing the decision-making at the director level, this process, conducted over a 2-day retreat, was opened to archivists and conservators working at the Menil and Whitney to leverage their broad expertise. 

To figure out where ADP was going, the group first had to evaluate the past, assessing how the program evolved from its inception and looking critically at why some interviews were more successful than others and how that could inform practices moving forward. The group then collaboratively developed mission and vision statements and outlined a core set of values that can be used to inform the project's future. The mission and vision statements confirm Mancusi-Ungaro's foundational precepts that the purpose of the interviews is to document, at that particular point in time, the subject’s memories and thoughts about their artwork, and that the interviews should be minimally edited to ensure the integrity of the interview, respect the artist’s voice, and best facilitate seeing and hearing the artist in the presence of their work. With these guiding principles the group then determined strategic goals, each of which were designated as short-, middle- and long-term action items. 

As one of the longest running artist interview programs, this reevaluation may strike some as heretical, but just as artistic practices change, so must interview practices.  Especially important to all participants were the issues of accessibility and diversity, and we are currently engaged in exploring how to most effectively provide English and Spanish closed-captioning and transcripts.  The value of this effort was made evident by Irene Esteves-Amador's 2021 interview with Daniel Lind-Ramos in Spanish, which was the first ADP interview conducted in a language other than English.  

A periodic re-evaluation is critical to ensure long-running programs remain relevant; successes and disappointments are lessons that need to be evaluated and learned from. Change and adaptation can be nurtured.  We hope that by sharing our process and the thoughts and motivation behind these actions and changes, we will help others engaged in their own evolutionary process.