Photo By Brian Heim, Cincinnati Art Museum

New face at an old space: Aaron Betsky

The Cincinnati Art Museum's spruce and enthusiastic new director flew into town last weekend to take part in the museum's 125th anniversary celebration and to give on-site attention to his own role in its immediate future.

Previous commitments keep Aaron Betsky and his partner, artist Peter Haberkorn, from actually moving to Cincinnati until later this year, but as Betsky winds down in Rotterdam, where he is director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, he's begun to think about possibilities and projects here.

In the sunny corner office the museum sets aside for its directors, Betsky is pleasantly hospitable and already seems at home. He has an alert, expressive face and salt-and-pepper hair and wears an admirable tie, its two-dimensional pattern mimicking three dimensions in the sort of visual space joke to which an architectural scholar like himself could be drawn.

We talk about bicycling, museum philosophy and how it feels to come back to Cincinnati after 20 years elsewhere. (Betsky taught at the University of Cincinnati's School of Architecture and Interior Design from 1983 to 1985.)

"The city has changed a great deal," he says. "More mature. More fun. It's pulled itself together physically and has done a better job than most cities in its downtown. What's happened (architecturally) on the (UC) campus is amazing.

"The character, history and landscape remain unlike any other city in the area. I love the logic of the landscape, the rhythm of the urban clusters in Cincinnati."

He says he wants to live close enough to the museum to bicycle to work.

"I'm not sure it will be possible," he says. "We've looked at Liberty Hill -- close, but up and down in-between. I understand the trail along the Little Miami is quite long and good. The dedicated bicycle lanes in the Netherlands are wonderful."

Bicycling talk leads to a discussion about moving house. The couple, together now for 18 years, was married in a ceremony in the Netherlands in June 2004. How does Haberkorn feel about coming here?

"I think he's excited," Betsky says. "He trained (as an architect, before turning to making art) in Pittsburgh, a city something like Cincinnati. He said he felt at home when he came here."

What sort of art does Haberkorn make?

"Peter is acutely attuned to his surroundings," he says. "He's interested in textures and materiality of the objects and images he finds and makes into large, three-dimensional collages."

Who cooks?

"I cook and he bakes," Betsky says. "He's precise, while I like to experiment."

On to museum philosophy, where he meets any potentially loaded questions with easy diplomacy. I ask if he thinks that sensational museum buildings sometimes channel attention away from the collections they were built to shelter.

"A museum as a destination is not an ugly idea," he says. "(Being) a gathering point, a symbol of a city, is not to be sneezed at. Any way to bring art and the public together should be used to its fullest extent."

His opinion of "blockbuster" shows?

"I'm not interested in 'blockbuster' shows," Betsky says. "They come, they go, they're gone. I'm interested in 'coat-hanger' shows."

Huh?

"A 'coat-hanger' show has logic and resonance with the collection and the audience. It's a major event that other events can be hung on."

Could the CAM's recently completed Facilities Master Plan, with its extensive renovations and huge costs -- $125 million as starters; might reach $200 million -- orient his job largely to fund-raising and building expansion? And what about the collection?

"Collecting and exhibiting certainly are the core of a museum," he says. "I want to honor the tradition of this museum, the idea of art and industry informing each other. But the endowment is too low and money is needed for other things, including an expanded education program."

Betsky has said he wants "to make more use of the museum's vast collection." How? He replies that the collection, so individual to the museum, is one of the reasons he came here, and he's on record as admiring the installation of the Cincinnati Wing. He also threw out an interesting idea, one some museums are implementing.

"There may be ways to make storage more open," he says. "However it's done, these treasure houses should be accessible to the public."

The publication Architect's Newsletter has reported "many insiders expressed bafflement" at learning Betsky was leaving the architectural field for the art world.

"It is a bit of a step for me after investing 20 years of my life in a focus on architecture, although I always saw architecture as part of the larger culture," he says. "In experiencing architecture, the wider issue is art. Buildings are powerful and restrictive, while art is both faster and slower. The opportunity to work with that is exciting."

It also should be noted that earlier in his career Betsky was a curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Today's culture looks to art museums for educational, social and emotional sustenance with unprecedented expectations. The Cincinnati Art Museum, with 125 years under its belt, is poised for a greater role in that world.

Aaron Betsky might be just the man to lead it there. ©