Dr. Sabine Eckmann, director and chief curator of the Mildred Kemper Lane Art Museum at Washington University, has curated exhibitions internationally with the biggest names in the modern art world. Most recently, she was responsible for inviting the artist Ai Weiwei to campus to exhibit some of his works, many of which are being displayed in the U.S. for the first time. A native of Nuremberg, Germany, she specializes in 20th and 21st century European art and often curates exhibits about the intersection of art and politics. In a recent conversation with Student Life, she talked about her experience collaborating with Ai Weiwei, the Kemper expansion, the arts scene in St. Louis and more.

Photo by Christine Watridge

SL: What was your experience like working with Ai Weiwei?

SE: It was a very good experience. He’s a good listener and a very creative responder… I presented the concept of the exhibition to him, and I had a wishlist of certain works I wanted to have in the exhibition, and he actually responded with artworks that [fit] in the whole concept of the exhibition better than the ones I had selected. So, in that sense, he is a very creative person and also one who thinks very carefully. He’s also… very outspoken and direct. So, if he didn’t like something or if he had questions he asked them very direct and straightforward, so there was never any area where I didn’t know what to think of how to push the project forward. So, it was a very, from my perspective, productive back and forth in developing the exhibition and the exhibition catalogue and having him here. So, I overall learned a lot… Just the sincerity of his humanitarian thoughts and moral and ethical concerns, made [the exhibition] for me more important and meaningful.

SL: What do you think bringing an artist like Ai Weiwei into the Kemper is going to mean for the Wash. U. arts community and the St. Louis arts community?

SE: He is, incidentally, the most important artist working today… He’s very popular, but he is also very serious and a serious artist and from my perspective someone who in very interesting ways combines conceptual art and political realism in his artworks. Given where the world is today and given all the military endeavors and given the worldwide refugee crisis, given the human rights violations, especially in St. Louis towards African Americans, I would think that he should resonate with our communities not only with his reputation as the most important artist working today but also because of his concerns and his endeavor to really give visibility to those who we don’t often consider today’s world—those who endure these human rights violations.

SL: The Kemper expansion was a very large project. How has this new expansion affected the work that you do?

SE: Well, first of all, every museum is interested in the works it owns and our mission is to show these works and share these works with the community, and that is now to a much larger extent than possible, especially starting in February when we also have the lower galleries finished. Overall we will be able to show more, basically almost doubling the exhibition galleries for one exhibition, so we should be able to collaborate nationally and internationally with other institutions that have that kind of space. We can do more serious exhibitions, be more competitive and show more of the collection, so it’s a win-win situation.

SL: So when you’re selecting artists to be guest artists at the Kemper or any other museum, how do you go about selecting them?

SE: That’s a very good question, and it’s a little bit complicated too, because you always see your entire exhibition program, and so what we’re trying to do here is to really look, on the one hand, back to the permanent collection and what our strengths are, and it is basically a modern collection dating in the 19th-21st century with some historical materials. So, that’s one thing to consider. Another one is that we feel as a museum that we also have to respond more and more to the global world and sort of open up our narratives to other nations or countries than European countries and the North American, specifically the United States, so we are trying to add more Asian voices, more African voices, more South American to our exhibition program…so that determines it a little bit. It also determined, for example, why I choose Ai Weiwei… So, it’s always this combination to look at the permanent collection but then also what kind of contribution the artist makes to today’s world, or of how the work of this artist helps us understand the past better.

SL: How has your experience been different working in a campus museum versus a more public art museum?

SE: I think we can be a little bit more experimental here on campus. We can understand ourselves more as a laboratory, and if something doesn’t work and if we fail then we can still learn from that failure. So, that kind of pressure is different at a public museum where you definitely have to make sure that what you do will address a very large audience…

SL: What has your experience been like working in America as a curator versus your experience maybe in other countries or in Germany?

SE: I never really worked in Germany after receiving my PhD in an institution, but I did exhibitions which traveled to German venues, and it’s a different culture I would say. There’s a different kind of interest in Germany, still, in museums than it is here. If you do a press conference in Germany you will have a hundred press people there and TV cameras and what else, and here I find very often that we have to struggle more to sort of show that art really matters to all our lives. So, that public interest in art is really less here than it is in Germany. That’s sort of my experience, and we’re trying to work hard to communicate that art does matter to everyone and that art can provide very meaningful experiences…

SL: What do you like to do for fun when you’re not working?

SE: I like to read novels… I wouldn’t say I really have that big of a hobby apart from my job. I do like to go to museums, also in my free time, and it sort of merges. Maybe it would be better to say that I’m lucky to say that I have a job which really fascinates me, and which is really at the same time also my hobby…