NBMAA Director Min Jung Kim Expanding Definition Of American Art

Just what is the definition of “America”? Is it just the United States? Does it include our North American partners, Mexico and Canada? Does the definition travel as far south as Central America and South America? And by extension, how is “American Art” defined?

The New Britain Museum of American Art always has defined America, and American art, one way, but with a new director in place some surprises are on the way.

NBMAA was founded in 1903 as the first museum in the country to focus exclusively on American art. Its director, Min Jung Kim, since taking over for Douglas Hyland in November 2015, will continue in that mission, but with a twist: She will begin by redefining what “American art” is.

“We will look back historically and bring more contemporary American art in exhibitions touching on the notion of the art of the Americas,” Kim said, “the United States, North American, Central America, South America, and the exchanges and the dialogues and the perspective that have ensued throughout the centuries.”

This emphasis on internationalism and the inspirations it brought about are evident with the first exhibit Kim has overseen since taking over the NBMAA.

“Vistas del Sur,” on the walls now, is an exhibit of work from the collection of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, one of the world’s great collectors of Latin American art. The exhibit will focus on “traveler artists,” European and North American artists who traveled to Latin America in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

“Many fine artists joined scientific expeditions, botanical and zoological scientific and ethnological expeditions, sometimes to record flora and fauna. They tried to remain objective, however in several of their landscape paintings you can see their own romanticized visions of South America,” she said. “These themes of different perspectives is definitely something you will see more of. I think great opportunities exist in this conversation about American art.”

In that spirit, the exhibit will feature bilingual (Spanish and English) wall text and bilingual tours.

Kim, 46, said NBMAA’s own collection will continue to focus on art from the United States. But under her guidance, its gallery shows will cast a wider net. “Through special exhibitions we have much more flexibility to explore a wider spectrum of possibilities,” she said.

Korea To Massachusetts

Kristina Newman-Scott, director of culture for the state of Connecticut (DECD), is especially appreciative of Kim’s efforts to open up the museum to a wider interpretation of “American art.”

“Being an immigrant working in the arts myself, I believe that subject, that kind of dialogue, is so appropriate right now. America is changing. We know our population is shifting in all kinds of ways. This is the best time to be considering the meaning of America to all the people who live here and call America home,” Newman-Scott said.

“We all have the same love even though our journeys and our pasts are different,” she added. “What does that journey look like, feel like, and how can we use that difference to unite us through art?”

This international focus is a natural for Kim, who is the first immigrant to lead the venerable institution. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, her art education sent her around the world.

What brought Kim from Seoul to Norton, Mass., to attend Wheaton College was the American education system.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to study. In Korea, college is very competitive and it’s fairly strict in terms of knowing exactly what university and what major and what field and what specialization you want,” said Kim. “I think having that period of exploration and experimentation is wonderful and one of the great pillars of the American educational system.”

This approach led her to her life mission, as she took an Art History 101 class, which covered prehistoric to contemporary art and was taught by a variety of professors. “The single commonality among all these professors is that every one of them got up and spoke with such passion. It was contagious,” she said.

She decided to major in art history. At first, Italian Renaissance caught her eye. But later, she fell in love with postwar art. After Wheaton, she got a master’s degree in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London. She also attended the Getty Museum Leadership Institute in Claremont, Calif.

Back To Korea

Kim’s first job out of college put her in a comfort zone: She worked for Sotheby’s in Seoul. She learned a lot, but the biggest takeaway from that job was “discovering that I had no interest in the commercial aspect of art,” she said. “My heart was really in nonprofits and museums.”

From there, she moved to the Samsung Foundation for Art and Culture, also in Seoul. When she was with Samsung, Kim helped coordinate a traveling exhibit from the Guggenheim. When the Guggenheim exhibit left Seoul, Kim wasn’t far behind, taking a job that put her back in the United States. At the time, the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain was just beginning construction and Kim was put on another project.

“I was part of a team that conceived and developed an entirely new joint venture with Deutsche Bank to create an entity in Berlin, which became the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin. It opened from concept to realization during a very accelerated period of nine months, which was crazy and exciting,” she said of the 5,000-square-foot facility.

Her stay at the Guggenheim was all about expansion and growth, not just geographically but curatorially, too, as Kim helped to oversee many international traveling exhibitions. Her tenure at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing, where she went after the Guggenheim, also was about expansion and growth.

“When I arrived it was still under construction. It was a start-up,” she said. “When I joined the Broad I was only one of five staff members. Off the bat within the first 18 months I hired 25 full-time employees, I helped set up the operational infrastructure, policies, procedures, operations to fully launch this new museum.”

So when she arrived at NBMAA, she was relieved that a big expansion had just been completed. “I was really thrilled to now be in a situation where I didn’t have to worry about that, expansion or construction,” she said. “I could really focus on programmatic development. It’s more about audience building and profile building.”

Kim has taken up residence in the west end of Hartford with her son and her partner.

City Of Immigrants

Kim, in emphasizing her broadening definition of “American art,” pointed out that many legendary American artists were immigrants themselves.

“Immigration continues to be a driving force in the demographic makeup of America to one that becomes increasingly racially diverse, one that is increasingly diverse and hybrid,” she said. “You see that in New Britain as well. New Britain started out, especially peaking in the 1930s, as a place with a very large Polish population. Now the population of New Britain is becoming increasingly Hispanic, 37 percent and 60 percent in the schools.

“American art,” then, is not a rigid, geography-based classification but rather “a starting point for a conversation,” she said. That NBMAA will lead the conversation, she added, is a perfect fit.

“If we look at statistics issued by U.S. Census Bureau, they project that by the year 2044 America will be a plurality nation. There will be no distinct race or ethnicity with more than a 50 percent share of the nation’s total population. It’s kind of remarkable to see the direction that we have been and will continue to go in.”

One of Kim’s biggest fans is her predecessor, Hyland, who was director of the museum from 1999 to 2015. “She’s taking the museum in a different direction. … It’s a breath of fresh air,” Hyland, of West Hartford, said.

Hyland is especially excited about “Vistas del Sur.”

“Patricia Phelps de Cisneros is an incredible collector,” he said. “To attract that type of a collector opens a world of different connections and ideas I never had a chance to explore.”

Todd Stitzer, president of the board of trustees of the NBMAA, said Kim’s international focus was one of the reasons she was hired. “The Hispanic, Caribbean, African American communities here, they all have roots in different parts of the Americas,” Stitzer said. “We should showcase the art from those areas and connect the heritage of the residents in this area to the places where they came from. This is exciting to the board, to connect with all the different parts of our community.”

Before Kim’s hiring, outreach to diverse communities was a priority, with the founding of the museum’s Juneteenth celebration and other events. “Min is just taking this idea to another level,” he said.