New director is rethinking the Henry's mission and plotting its course

Sylvia Wolf, former head of photography at New York's Whitney Museum, took over as director of Seattle's Henry Art Gallery in April. Since then, she has been thinking about the museum's mission, its relationship with the University of Washington and its role in the community. She sat down with me earlier this week to talk about what's coming up at the Henry. Here is part of our conversation:

Q: You've been here four months now. What have you been doing?

A: We have been hard at work establishing a new education initiative, which we're about to launch in September. We have just announced the opening of a new director of education and external relations position that we are hoping to hire sometime in October. And within that initiative is a shared fellow program. The UW and the Henry have a committed fund to host an outside person, who will come and work part-time at the Henry, part-time at the university: It could be a scholar; it could be an artist; it could be a curator.

Q: Sounds like you've accomplished a lot already ...

A: Yes, we're on a fast track, but that happens when A) you're excited about possibilities, and B) you're made welcome. I attribute the goodwill that's been extended to me and my husband [theatrical lighting designer Duane Schuler] to the goodwill that's felt for the Henry.

Q: Was it hard to leave the Whitney when the exhibition you curated, "Polaroids: Mapplethorpe," was opening?

A: I've been a curator for 20 years (before the Whitney, I spent 12 years at the Art Institute of Chicago), but I've also taught — at the curatorial studies level, at the art history seminar level, at the studio level, so to become a director and to apply all that in an educational environment, it seemed tailor-made to me at this time in my life. Plus I love Seattle. It's a great place to be. And the Mapplethorpe Polaroid show is coming to the Henry in 2009.

Q: Photography is a big part of your background and interest. Was that part of the Henry's appeal?

A: Yes and no. ... For me photography has been both an area I love, but also a jumping-off point for looking at and thinking about other media. Was the Henry's photography strength part of the attraction? It was an added benefit. It was something I knew I would take pleasure in. But I'm not here to be a photography curator; I am here to be the director.

Q: You are such a lucid and direct writer. Won't you miss that?

A: Actually, I am still writing. I have one book I committed to a year ago on where we are in digital photography now, so I'm in the process of that in my rare few off hours. Writing about art is also a form of teaching, of informing. The amount I write to communicate about art has not diminished. Am I interpreting works of art? Maybe not. But I am interpreting the mission of the Henry and its future potential in correspondence, PR and grant writing. So I haven't felt the sting yet, or the longing. I feel useful! What can be better than that?

Q: I won't argue. Former director Richard Andrews was here a long time. How will you make your mark? What do you see changing?

A: When you say change, for me it doesn't make sense to shift the entire program to head in a completely different direction. Build upon the strengths of the Henry's program? Yes. We are also honing what we mean when we say we are a contemporary-art-focused museum. We are asking how that dovetails with an 81-year-old collection that has over 20,000 objects, some of which are costumes and textiles. How do we bring those things together? That's what I'm working on with the staff and the board.

Q: It's a big question for the Museum of Modern Art. Everybody's wondering about it: If you start off collecting modern, you end up old-fashioned. So what do you do with all that stuff?

A: You start thinking about it. In our case: Are we primarily a contemporary-art-exhibiting institution, or do we want the emphasis to be on looking at all periods and all art with a contemporary mindset?

Q: What does that mean?

A: With a curiosity about what art means now. What it means to look back at 19th-century costumes now. I think if we can get ourselves to come up with a core attitude about what it means to collect, assess, interpret, exhibit, publish from the Henry, then I think it won't be about whether it's contemporary art, photography, video, media: It will be a mindset with which we will approach all mediums at all times.

Q: Who do you see as your audience?

A: We are currently conducting a visitor survey, and we do ongoing membership surveys to see who's in our camp, who's in our family. There's no question we can do better on bringing in our neighbors, the students at the university. That said, we also have a community that has a broad array of arts organizations, from theater to ballet to visual art and opera: How we partner with that community is going to be important to us. Right now, I'm asking questions and listening. I'm still being a sponge, taking in as much as I possibly can.

Q: Anything new on the horizon?

A: We're increasing access to our collections online — that launches in September, supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. We also will be launching a new Web site this fall with search capacities and tools that better represent what we do.

Q: Is there anything you want people to know about you they haven't already heard?

A: Just that I am delighted to be here and that I genuinely believe that the more active arts organizations a community has, and the more people attend, the healthier we all are and the richer our society is. The idea of all of us contributing to the society at large is what I really strongly believe in to the core of my being, the depths of my heart.

Sheila Farr: sfarr@seattletimes.com