grass is greener on the other side. In the private sector, maybe things would be better if you had public funding, because then you would not have to deal with the individual tastes of 40 or 50 people. Meanwhile, publicly funded institutions wish they had greater access to capital, and the flexibility to take on different kinds of projects. At the end of the day, a well-functioning, privately supported institution probably has the greatest latitude for creativity.
To whom should museums ultimately be accountable? I do think of museums as a public service. A museum is a place that has to be able to give the public space to feel— emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, culturally. We exist – wherever we might be; no matter what our governance structure might be – for the public, so we must never lose sight of that, so that when you are faced with difficult challenges, whatever they might be, you will be able to go back to your mission and make sure that your responses are in line with that.
ON THE ARAB WORLD How can Arab museums develop leadership and governance frameworks that are globally credible, yet rooted in local cultural and political realities? While there are opportunities to learn from European and North American museums, they are not the only answer. We should never feel that they are the only models. The issues that a museum in Riyadh might face are fundamentally different from the issues in Delhi or Tokyo. For institutions to succeed, they have to respond to local conditions. I am currently working with Qatar Museums as an advisor to Her Excellency Sheikha Mayassa; she has developed an extraordinary museum culture in Qatar, and she’ s done it by studying European and North American museums, looking at best practices, and taking what works and adapting it to the region.
Saudi Arabia is building cultural institutions at unprecedented speed and scale. What are your thoughts on the Kingdom’ s institutional quality? My impression is that there is an extraordinary degree of thoughtfulness around cultural questions. I was very lucky to be part of the Diriyah Biennale Foundation’ s advisory team, and I’ m also working with the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah. I’ ve been very impressed by how DBF has developed the Biennale in Riyadh, as well as how it manages the JAX District. The team there is incredibly motivated. Talking to the CEO, Aya Al-Bakree, and to the Vice Chairman of the Foundation’ s Board of Trustees, Rakan Altouq, it is clear that they know where they want to go.
Obviously, there’ s a certain amount of pressure with Vision 2030 to achieve a range of goals. Historically, the Kingdom has not had an extensive museum culture, so there’ s great opportunity to build cultural infrastructure. The people that I’ m engaged with understand what it will take to do this well, and they’ re more interested in doing it well than fast.
ON THE FUTURE What skills or training do future museum leaders need? How should they balance international expertise with local cultural grounding? There are professional programmes – often centered in European and North American universities, but not exclusively – that teach certain sets of skills; conservation; registration; education; curation. You can acquire a certain kind of knowledge through a PhD programme, but you can also acquire a great deal of knowledge working in a gallery or an auction room, or working with artists directly and learning from them. I think museums are also places that benefit from staff that have a wide variety of experiences, across many different geographies.
Given the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah’ s ambition to weave together historical artifacts and contemporary practices from across the Islamic world, how do you envision its evolution over the next decade? There is something really interesting about the richness of Islam, as a religious practice, and as a social and cultural entity. I think the Biennale has an opportunity to address a whole range of issues at a global scale; the gateway to Mecca and Medina welcomes the world. The challenge for the Biennale is to keep it fresh. A lot of the work it does is centered on historical material, so that will depend on engaging with the present through the past, and finding curators who can address compelling questions about the past that resonate with the present.
If you were advising a new museum director in the Arab world today, what leadership habits would you urge them to invest in themselves? I would say that experience is essential. The best curators that I’ ve met – all over the world – are those with the greatest degree of experience; those that have done the traveling and the learning that allows them to bring different ideas together, rather than simply remaining within one intellectual or cultural silo.
ON GREAT MUSEUMS What are your top three museums in the world, and why? The trouble is there are so many. I love the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. I think great museums are always institutions that bring together inspiring works of art and brilliant installations that make you think, within a unique architectural space that enhances the pleasure of looking at art— and the Gulbenkian always does that for me. The recently refurbished MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo – designed by Lina Bo Bardi is another fascinating institution. I love that museum as a civic monument. It offers a unique experience in which you move around works of art mounted on pedestals in three-dimensional space. I love the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art near Copenhagen; the setting is sublime, the pacing is brilliant, and the collection is incredible. I also really like what has happened in Qatar with Mathaf, which is a perfectly scaled museum, generating beautiful exhibitions that are full but not so large as to feel overwhelming.
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