backstory takeover: What I’ve learned
Thanksgiving is a moment to appreciate the people who make this museum come alive. At the Neuberger, that includes our students, who don’t just study art, they help curate it.
As an academic museum, we’re thankful for their ideas, effort, and willingness to dive into the hands-on work of exhibition making. And they’re thankful for the opportunity to learn alongside professionals whose guidance shapes the next generation of museum thinkers.
This backstory takeover is written by Curatorial Intern Alina Skitzki, who works under the direction of our own Rem Ribeiro, curatorial assistant.
As someone who has been professing that I’ve wanted to be a curator for years, I honestly didn’t know that much about the real, everyday responsibilities it entailed until I started my internship at the Neuberger.
Now, I feel like I could curate an entire museum by myself. I’ve grown to love going through the collection, the preliminary research, the time-consuming process of making and double-checking maquettes, writing exhibition materials, and the many other curatorial processes I’ve been exposed to during my time at the Neuberger. I feel like I’ve learned to look at artwork in a new way—not as a concrete document of a specific time, space, or emotion, but rather as a potent and fluid source material for reflection on our contemporary landscape, regardless of its date.
What I’ve learned most in my time at the Neuberger does not relate to curating or, broadly, arts management: I’ve learned about thoughtfulness—how much thought goes into every minute aspect of an exhibition from every department in the Museum. I learned how the different Museum departments are not discrete compartments but instead exist in a complex and intertwined ecosystem of collaboration. When it came to object layout, wall texts and labels, pedestal heights, etc., I witnessed the intellectual labor that everyone in the Neuberger undertook to make the Museum as intriguing and accessible as possible.
I used to see the Museum as a repository of the past, a place where I could go to immerse myself in a time before my own. But from my experience at the Neuberger, I now see the Museum as the ultimate symbol of public service. A place where you go to find questions to ask yourself. And I don’t think that would be possible without the amount of care and thought that goes into every exhibition by every person at the Museum.
— Alina Skitzki, Curatorial Intern
Thank you for supporting the work that Alina and our other interns do alongside our staff at the Neuberger.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Tracy
Tracy Fitzpatrick, Director
Neuberger Museum of Art
