The Guggenheim Museum with Curator Megan Fontanella

Episode Summary

The Guggenheim Museum is one of the greatest art institutions in the United States, and in the world. Who works there? Who are these people we know as “curators?” What goes on behind the scenes in preparing exhibitions? The Sydcast goes on a road trip to the NY Guggenheim (pre-COVID) to talk to curator Megan Fontanella, who shares her passion for the stories behind the historic artworks in the collection, her journey to art and curatorship, and what it takes to create exhibits that bring art to life for patrons, critics, and general audiences.

Syd Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life. 

Megan Fontanella

Megan Fontanella joined the curatorial staff in 2005 and conducts collections research for the Guggenheim, focusing on institutional history and the provenance of artworks. In addition to her research work, she has co-organized several collection-based exhibitions, including Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949–1960; The Great Upheaval: Modern Art from the Guggenheim Collection, 1910–1918; and From Berlin to New York: Karl Nierendorf and the Guggenheim. Her co-organized international presentations for the Guggenheim include From Private to Public: Collections and the Guggenheim and Painterly Abstraction, 1949–1969: Selections from the Guggenheim Collections, both at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; she likewise curated Visions of Modernity, the final presentation of the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin. More recently, Fontanella supported the traveling retrospective Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting; curated Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim, and co-curated Giacometti. She has also helped organize numerous presentations in the museum’s former Kandinsky Gallery and currently maintains the Thannhauser Gallery, a permanent display of 19th- and early 20th-century art. For the Guggenheim Bilbao she organized Van Gogh to Picasso: The Thannhauser Legacy. Megan graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in art history modified with history and received her MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where she specialized in late 19th-century French art. She is a member of the Board of Advisors at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth.

Insights from this episode:

• Details on how exhibitions are determined and created, what happens once the exhibit has launched, and what happens if the show is a flop.
• Strategies used to create exhibits, how to get pieces on loan from other museums, and how reframing shows to present them differently to the audience gives them new life.
• Details on artists like Kandinsky, Cézanne, and Van Gogh, how they were influenced by their time period and surroundings, and how those influences can be seen in their art.
• How to determine the provenance of a piece of artwork, how the journey of the object can influence exhibits, and dealing with sensitive issues surrounding pieces.  
• Benefits of incorporating art into your life and encouraging children to appreciate art through exposure and respect.

Quotes from the show:

• On building relationships: “So much in life is socially based, no matter how ‘scientific’ or ‘technical’ something is, the personal connection is so important.” – Syd Finkelstein
• On creating an exhibition: “It really, genuinely takes a village. There are so many colleagues that I rely upon to make sure that things go off without a hitch.” – Megan Fontanella
• “Some of the most special, fantastic shows maybe don’t connect with our visitors but connect with art historians and critics or vice-versa; it doesn’t connect with critics but is wildly successful [with audiences].” – Megan Fontanella
• On building exhibits: “First and foremost, we strive for scholarship behind our work, we strive to do justice to the artists’ work.” – Megan Fontanella
• On exhibits featuring art from a living artist versus ancient artwork: “It’s an interesting dynamic to think about when the artist is living and this is part of his or her brand and what they are trying to accomplish.” – Syd Finkelstein
• “An exhibit is a work of art in itself.” – Syd Finkelstein
• “Every object tells a story, it has lived a life, and I very much relish pulling out those stories.” – Megan Fontanella
• “You don’t have to be an art historian or think you are going to pursue a future career in the art world to hone your visual literacy.” – Megan Fontanella
• “Variety of experience creates more talented people in whatever area they end up in.” – Syd Finkelstein
• “There are so many different ways that art can affect us and I would just love for the arts to become something that everyone feels is part of their life.” – Megan Fontanella

Stay Connected:

Syd Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Megan Fontanella

Book: Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim 

Website: www.guggenheim.org

LinkedIn: Megan Fontanella

Instagram: @meganfontanella

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry (www.podcastlaundry.com)