SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- After
graduating in 1994 from the University of
Pittsburgh with a double major in art history and Japanese,
Eric Shiner began a one-year
internship at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh the week it opened its doors. He
went on to become an expert in contemporary Chinese and Japanese
art, and in 2008, he received a phone call from the then-director
of The Warhol, asking him if he would like to become the Milton
Fine Curator of Art. Shiner accepted the offer and returned to his
hometown. He became director of the museum in January 2011.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121207/CG26104)
In the days leading up to The Warhol's private party at this
year's Art Basel Miami Beach, XOJET spoke with Shiner about leading
one of the most innovative museums in the world while protecting
the work of one of the most famous artists in history.
XOJET: What distinguishes The Andy Warhol
Museum and what are your goals?
ES: We've just completed a year-long strategic planning
process that we're going to start implementing in January. Goal #1
is how we become the source on all things Warhol, how we
become the holder and the keeper of Warhol's legacy, and how we
share that with the world. Also, we're going to start focusing on
the visitor experience, and leading up to our 20-year anniversary
in May 2014, we're doing a huge
ground-floor transformation, re-installing all seven floors of our
galleries from top to bottom, and putting our gallery system into a
chronological framework, so you see how Warhol still remains
important today.
XOJET: Speaking of today, talk about technology
and the museum's engagement with social media.
ES: It's in our blood, really, because Warhol was always
an innovator in terms of new technology. It came to the point that
developers of new products would come to him and ask him to utilize
their product in the development of a new work of art. So when the
Polaroid camera was invented, they went directly to Warhol and
asked him to use it to see what he could do. The same with early
tape recording devices, early video cameras, Andy even had an early
Amiga computer. He was always ahead of the curve, and because of
that, we always think in that direction as well. As Facebook and
Twitter were developing, we wanted to be front and center, and
we've been very successful. Right now, we have more than 485,000
followers on Twitter, making us the eighth-most-followed museum in
the world.
XOJET: Warhol's obsessive documentation
certainly anticipated the age of social media.
ES: Absolutely. Think about Andy going home every night,
leaving Studio 54 and calling his secretary to talk about the
goings-on of the evening, then doing the same thing in the morning.
He was constantly recording his life through tape recording and
video. It was really an early form of Twitter and Facebook. The
question I get the most is "Would Andy be tweeting if he were alive
today?" I would say he would have been there from the beginning,
because the developers of Facebook and Twitter would have gone to
him first. Forget Yale and Harvard, it would have been Andy Warhol.
XOJET: How do you think Warhol would feel about
the museum now?
ES: If you'd asked me that question 18 years ago, I think
his first critique would be that it's in Pittsburgh, instead of New York. But now I think that if he were
witness to what we've achieved, he would be over the moon simply
because this museum has helped the city move forward in terms of
contemporary culture and open-mindedness probably more than any
other institution.
Our motto is, "How do we take something that's an anomaly and
make it a paradigm?" Which is based directly on Warhol's own life
and experiences. What drives our selections in exhibitions is how
someone from the outer fringes became one of the most important
figures of the 20th century. I think he would have a lot of respect
for that.
XOJET: Do you often have to put aside all
thoughts of what Andy would do?
ES: Sure. At the end of the day, we have to make
decisions based on the good of the museum, not the perceptions of
what a ghost would want. Even though we think about what Warhol
might do or like, we also remain critically distant, so we're not
all complete Warhol maniacs walking around in white wigs and black
clothes. That would just be weird. We do make sure that we are
being very critical to the concept of Warhol so we never
pander.
XOJET: How have the roles museums play in
everyday lives changed during your career?
ES: I'm constantly thinking about that, and of course we
are paying close attention to what museums mean to people right
now, what they're going to mean to people in 10 years and 20 years.
I think there's going to be a paradigm shift where the physical
experience, sadly, may not be as important to us as the digital
experience.
XOJET: So where do you see your museum five, 10
years from now?
ES: We're heading in so many exciting directions, much of
which revolves around us being, once and for all, financially
stable. We're spending the next five years making sure we're doing
everything we can to build our endowment, but also to continue to
share the collection and Andy with the world. Ultimately, we're
interested in technology helping us do that so we can involve many
more people around the world who might also be able to help support
us financially even at low levels of funding. We're definitely
exploring lots of new business development opportunities, and
what's more Warholian than that? He was a man who saw no
differentiation between art and business whatsoever and I think
it's our responsibility to look at ways to continue doing that as
well.
Media Contact: Amanda Schuon XOJET, 310-550-7200,
amanda@tbtpr.com
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SOURCE XOJET