MASS MoCA curator Denise Markonish talks about:
The immense size of the museum (300,000 sq. ft.), including the football field-sized main exhibition space, and how despite its being three hours from the big cities (NYC, Boston…), it gets tremendous attendance- the parking lot’s full even on weekday mornings; how half of her time is devoted to the road, having conversations w/artists in their studios, and prompting some of them to make work that melds with her exhibition concepts; curating Oh, Canada, a survey of Canadian artists for which she did 400 studio visits across the country over three years, pissing off much of Vancouver in the process (kidding!); working with Nick Cave, whose massive installation was immensely popular with visitors, as well as working with emerging artists at the museum; and she shares the harrowing story of driving to pick up a vintage, cast-iron black-faced lawn jockey for Nick Cave’s sprawling installation.