Harvard to Houston
Menil Drawing Institute debuts with new chief curator
After years of preparations, the Menil Drawing Institute is finally open, and no one finds it more ravishing than Edouard Kopp, the recently hired chief curator who will run its administration, programs and exhibitions. He loves the building’s intimate scale and the functionality architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee built into their elegant, minimal design on the Menil Collection campus in Montrose. “They did amazing work on the light and how it is modulated, with the canopy outside, so that as you arrive and enter, your retina adjusts to gentler light levels,” Kopp said, alluding to the fact that drawings are notoriously light-sensitive, but no one wants to visit or work in a cave, so ample natural light was important. Kopp Leaving was the the curator Harvard of Art drawings Museums, for three where years, was hard; but the opportunity to help create a new institution was a powerful draw. And the new job, like the previous one, still incorporates the things he loves — teaching, studying and curating. While Kopp doesn’t start work in Houston until January, he has drafted a long punch list of projects for the fresh entity. “It’s a great moment to come to the Menil,” he said. Q: The MDI has a huge basement storage area with ample room to grow holdings. What are your plans for building on the current, 2,000-piece collection? A: While Surrealism and post-war American art are great areas of strength, and will remain centers of gravity for the collection, there is a desire to have a better representation of women artists, artists of color and international artists. Those are three axes of growth that make a lot of sense. But since modern and contemporary drawings tend to command substantial prices, and acquisition budgets are finite, it is important for the collecting to remain focused to achieve depth. Q: Last December you acquired Kara Walker’s monumental “U.S.A. Idioms” for Harvard. Can the MDI accommodate work on that scale? A: The gallery should be able to accommodate several drawings of that size (almost 12 x 15 feet). While the galleries are generally intimate, they were designed in a very thoughtful way, so that it will be possible to display works in larger formats. Q: Much of the building is devoted to scholarly research. What will be happening there? offices A: With for resident a study room, scholars a conservation and curators, lab, study is clearly an important dimension. We will have an exciting program to promote scholarship on modern and contemporary drawings. There will be two MDI fellows per year. One will be a junior scholar working on doctoral research; the other will be a more senior person — an academic or a practicing artist. We will also generate publications, at least one a year, mostly exhibition catalogues. Q: The MDI has also spent about a decade on a six-volume, 800-page Jasper Johns catalogue raisonné that finally publishes this month.
A: Yes. That’s a monumental piece of scholarship, which was years in the making. Rebecca Rabinow, the Menil director, wants to continue publishing catalogue raisonnés. Such publications take a lot of resources (research, travel, photography, editing), so they cannot appear as frequently as, say, exhibition catalogues. The Menil is well-known for its top-notch publications. Q: What about educational outreach? A: I hope to organize a varied series of programs — for the general public and also for more specialized audiences — that reflect the fact that there are many ways to look at and to talk about drawing, be it in terms of materiality and technique, or from an aesthetic, philosophical or even spiritual standpoint. I am personally quite interested in thinking about the boundaries of the drawing medium and its connections with other media, such as sculpture, film and music. I’m keen on organizing conversations with artists. The MDI’s living room (the central foyer) will be perfect for that. It’s large enough for a sizable audience but intimate enough to feel like someone’s living room. Q: Do you plan to work with area universities? A: Yes. The MDI has ambitions on different levels — to partner with institutions in the Houston area, but also nationally and internationally. Houston has rigorous universities with fine students and professors. It will be crucial for the MDI to create strong relationships there. Art historians are bound to be natural partners, but I’d like to reach out to other disciplines as well. We want to be a strong and creative partner with the universities; we want to find ways to engage students, and to educate young people about the drawing medium.