Bullseye Blues

SAM must replace its spot-on curator Michael Darling. Can the museum hit the mark again? 


Jasper Johns’ 1958 Target from Darling’s Target Practice show: “What guides my thinking is always trying to be ahead of culture,” says Darling.

Why did Seattle Art Museum’s dazzling modern and contemporary curator Michael Darling jilt us to become chief curator at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art next month? “I guess I still lust after even more activity and change which only a contemporary museum can provide,” says Darling.

Besides what the curator recognizes as “a great collection, amazing private collections, a thriving artist scene and a very dynamic young director,” he gets a promotion. Also, in 2007 Darling made $100,560, versus $113,156 for deputy director Chiyo Ishikawa. His old LA colleague Elizabeth Smith made $175,000 as top dog at Chicago’s MCA. As Smith’s successor, Darling will also “really be able to actively shape the exhibition program and identity of the museum.”

Did SAM’s $5.8 million loss when tenant Washington Mutual self-destructed drive Darling away? New tenant Nordstrom rode to the rescue, but SAM was richer when Darling arrived hoping to mount touring shows. Alas, says Western Bridge curator Eric Fredericksen, Darling’s programs are dwindling. “SAM Next and the commissions for the Olympic Sculpture Park pavilion have been slowed way down. Not having a catalog for Kurt [Darling’s big new show] is a bummer.”


Michael Darling; Photograph by
Jennifer Richards.

SAM has a checkered history with contemporary art. Founder Richard Fuller hated it and tried to prevent the purchase of Warhol’s Double Elvis – the very painting that helped convince Darling to come here. When SAM’s first modern art curator, Charles Cowles, arrived in 1973 and asked to see SAM’s Jackson Pollock, it was lost. “I said, if you can’t find it in twenty-four hours, I don’t want the job,” says Cowles. “It was in the janitor’s closet behind the slop sink.”

SAM got better fast under Cowles and his successors, but its contemporary art is relatively skimpy. To whom should SAM turn to spin golden shows from budgetary straw?

“A clone of Michael Darling,” suggests TV arts maven Nancy Guppy. “We need another Michael Darling,” concurs art publisher Ed Marquand, “someone with national and international ambitions, who is connected, and who is sensitive to the local art scene. In the past two years, Marquand has met with curators at ninety museums. “No one I can think of could slide into the job and make magic happen.”

Others can think of Darling replacements. Fredericksen suggests St. Louis Contemporary’s Anthony Huberman. Con Works founder Matt Richter suggests Fredericksen. “Sara Krajewski has been a jewel at the Henry,” says critic Suzanne Beal. Portland arts critic Barry Johnson suggests ex-Portland Art Museum contemporary curator John Weber, whose Tang Museum at Skidmore organized the Henry’s recent Tim Rollins show. “He’d be excellent in many ways.” Another usual suspect: the Frye’s Robin Held, the only local besides SAM’s Ishikawa to win the Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship. Critic Matthew Kangas says, “Bring [ex-SAM curator] Bruce Guenther back from Portland Art Museum for his old job!”

Darling is ready for his new job. What he says about museumgoers evidently applies to him as well: “We crave seeing something we’ve never seen before.” •