Six Questions with Juror, Marina Pacini

Pacini retired as Chief Curator and Curator of American, Modern, and Contemporary Art in 2019 after 18 years at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Among the exhibitions she organized are Marisol: Sculptures and Works on Paper(2014), which travelled to El Museo del Barrio in New York, and was accompanied by a catalog co-published by Yale University Press; Red Grooms: Traveling Correspondent(2016, with catalog); Photographs from the Memphis World, 1949-1964(2008, with catalog); and The Soul of a City: Memphis Collects African American Art(2012).

Can you share with us a little about the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art/Denver Art Museum and your recent experience working there?

The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art was founded in Overton Park in 1916, which was early for a museum in the South. The museum is planning to move in 2025 into a new building in downtown Memphis designed by Herzog & de Meuron.

While the museum was segregated until 1960 (along with the libraries, pools, restaurants, and other public accommodations in Memphis), it has attempted for a long time and in many ways to redress and atone for that history. Among more recent efforts, in 2015 I mounted a small exhibition that focused on the Black students arrested in March 1960 for attempting to desegregate the museum, which I organized in conjunction with the traveling exhibition This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement. The project was part of my longstanding efforts to address issues of race and social justice; it also intersected with numerous exhibitions I organized over my 18 years at the Brooks. 

My two major projects were Marisol: Sculptures and Works on Paper (2014) and Red Grooms: Traveling Correspondent (2016). The former took me 9 years to realize but was stronger for the time I had to thoroughly research, write, and secure the complicated loans for the exhibition. Marisol was extremely well known and highly regarded in the 1960s, and over the decades she became less and less visible—for a variety of reasons including sexism, her own retreat from the art world, and the death of Sidney Janis, her long-time gallerist. Returning her to her proper place in the history of art through the exhibition and catalog succeeded to a certain extent, and I expect that my work will serve as a springboard for many future projects that will continue the reclamation of her well-deserved earlier acclaim. 

The latter was organized in two years in conjunction with the museum’s centennial—Grooms was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. As part of the celebration the museum commissioned Memphis on My Mind, a relief that magically encompasses some of the city’s musical, historical, political, and social history. Shepherding Grooms’ visit and seeing the city through his perspective was a privilege. Focusing on his sense of humor, which is readily evident in his art, opened the door to taking a deep dive into the Southern storytelling tradition—Southwestern humor, Mark Twain, the Grand Ole Opry, etc. The research not only elucidated my understanding and appreciation of Grooms, but also deepened my knowledge of my adopted home. 

From your perspective, how do you view the role of art and creativity in smaller, more rural towns versus larger cities?

The arts have a very important role to play and are essential for communities—regardless of size. Studies have demonstrated repeatedly that students and communities with access to the arts thrive in a variety of meaningful ways. The only difference between smaller and larger communities is that cities tend to have more arts organizations, which doesn’t necessarily translate into greater access. Memphis is a good example—we have many museums, a symphony, an opera company, a variety of theaters, and several dance companies, but there are still large swaths of the city that do not have ready access to these organizations, whether because of financial constraints, access to transportation, or people’s belief that they are not welcome. The arts organizations in Memphis actively try to counter these challenges but it is an uphill battle. Which brings me back to the original question, which is that the arts are essential for any community to thrive and finding ways to make the arts accessible should be a priority everywhere. 

What does successful community engagement look like for artists and arts organizations?

There is no one single role model for successful community engagement because each project must be based on the needs and wants of the individual community. But one common denominator needs to be actual community input, and from the beginning of the process, rather than after major decisions have already been made. The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art has an interpretive planning committee made up of parents, museum members, community activists, artists, and other arts professionals who meet quarterly to develop plans for upcoming exhibitions and projects; it’s been highly successful in bringing a variety of voices into conversations early on in the process. Often the biggest complaint lodged against projects is that people outside the community made the decisions rather than the actual constituents. A mural project in Memphis caused major rifts that ended up before the city council because of a lack of community participation in the selection of artists and subjects. And who can blame a community for believing that their voices should be heard regarding projects that they will be living with. 

Artists can be pigeonholed into “celebrity” or “outsider” status. What makes a celebrity or an outsider, and what is the relationship between the two?

The art market often depends on defining artists for making sales, and those definitions can be helpful. Just as often the definitions can be confining and serve commercial purposes more than they help clarify anyone’s thinking. The terms celebrity and outsider can sometimes say more about the person using the terms than about the artists being discussed—one person’s outsider might be another’s celebrity. 

Why jury a small arts show like 10x10? What is the significance of “small” art?

I find that artists often rise to a curatorial challenge in surprising and compelling ways. I had to laugh when I asked the Philadelphia painter Sidney Goodman why he started making dramatically larger paintings at one point in his career, expecting his reply to be something philosophical, and he answered that he moved into a studio that was big enough to allow him to experiment with the size of his canvases. While 10x10 has the exact opposite effect, it does require artists to work based on externally enforced parameters. I need to note that as some artists prefer to work small, these regulations may not be universally challenging. Regardless, the assumption that big is better is a fallacy. Some of the best things are small – for example the boxwood miniatures in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. 

What will you be looking for in submissions?

I will be looking for artists who cleverly address the 10x10 restrictions in producing something that is expansive technically, thoughtfully, ironically, or creatively, to name a few possibilities; in short, something that pushed the boundaries of 10x10.