The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will open its new Art of the Americas wing on Nov. 20, the centerpiece of its vast reconstruction and reconfiguration under Malcolm Rogers, who raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the project in a down economy. One of the more interesting of the many related changes at the MFA was the hiring earlier this year of ICA/Boston associate curator Jen Mergel as the MFA's new contemporary art curator. Well, actually she's the Robert L. Beal, Enid L. Beal and Bruce A. Beal Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - that's how they raise all that money. Mergel is a Dorchester native, a Harvard grad, and not yet 35, all good signs in a city that too often looks to established voices from elsewhere for its arts leadership. And she'll be in charge of a vastly expanded contemporary art operation at the MFA, which is turning over the West Wing to it.
And while all the unveilings at the MFA will be carefully managed in the weeks to come, there's a chance for the public to hear Mergel's thoughts on the contemporary art scene for themselves. Monday at 6 p.m. in Anderson Auditorium at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Mergel will offer the annual Beckwith Lecture. Established in 1978 by Leo and Betty Beckwith (daughter Carol is an alumna), the event is designed to "further student development by featuring artists and cultural thinkers of national and international stature." But it's also free and open to the public.
Mergel's talk is called "Message Received? How Contemporary Art Can Communicate—and Connect." I asked for more from Mergel, and received the following summary via email...
"Art can communicate more than a viewer expects or an artist intends. In our current communications age of non-stop instant digital posting, how can art engage us in new or newly meaningful ways? How can artists harness art's unbridled resonance to powerful effect? And how can viewers appreciate this more discerningly? This lecture raises these questions and considers how artists' choice of subject, selected materials, method of making, attention to context and clarity of intent can together speak louder than words. Examples of key points will be illustrated with works by SMFA alumnae. "
It's hard to know from that how much weight to give a lecture to students as a manifesto or statement of intent. But with an institution as large and carefully controlling of its public image as the MFA, we have to take what we can get. This seems an interesting opportunity to sample the thinking of a woman who should be a key player in the new era of the museum and thus very important in Boston's art world.
Image credit (35 words!) per the MFA: Jennifer Mergel, Robert L. Beal and Enid L. and Bruce A. Beal Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Linde Family Wing, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, February 18, 2010. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
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