How Can We Remake the Museum?
A Conversation with ICA Pittsburgh’s Elizabeth Chodos
ICA Pittsburgh
written by
Cally Jamis Vennare
On Sept. 30, Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) Pittsburgh hosted “How Can We Remake the Museum?”— a public symposium organized in collaboration with CMU’s School of Art lecture series and hosted at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Panelists included Elizabeth Chodos, founder & director of ICA Pittsburgh and associate professor of curatorial studies, CMU School of Art, and Johnson Family Public Art Curator at CMU; Lisa Dorin, deputy director of Williams College Museum of Art; James McAnally, artistic/executive director of Counterpublic; Harrison Kinnane Smith, an LA-based artist; and Alisha B. Wormsley, an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer, and assistant professor of Social Practice in the CMU School of Art.
Elizabeth Chodos (center) and panelists Harrison Kinnane Smith, Lisa Dorin, James McAnally and Alisha B. Wormsley (left to right).
Supported by funding from The Fine Foundation, the symposium complemented ICA Pittsburgh’s multiphase creative research project aimed at examining the role of contemporary art institutes in light of shifting cultural, political and social landscapes, and surveying the models and practices best suited to navigate this novel terrain. Findings will inform the 2028 public opening of ICA Pittsburgh in the new Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences — a building that will include classrooms, labs and other facilities for the arts, sciences and technology. Made possible by a $15 million lead commitment from the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation and the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, ICA Pittsburgh will more than double its gallery space to 30,000 square feet.
Since her arrival in 2017, Chodos’s vision and leadership have paved the way for ICA Pittsburgh’s evolution.
“Elizabeth has led the charge to transform ICA Miller to ICA Pittsburgh through unparalleled foundation support and an unwavering commitment from CMU to facilitate cultural discourse and free expression,” said Charlie White, CMU professor & head, School of Art. “None of these roles are the work of sharp elbows or heated arguments over cultural relevance but, rather, through honesty and idealism in the form and language of our shared founder, Andrew Carnegie, who saw clearly the balance of art and science, culture and industry, the right to free expression, and the need for a free market … which remain the formula for great civic enterprises today.”
Chodos presented multiple industry case studies during the symposium, as well as facilitated the panel discussion and audience Q&A. In this post-symposium interview with CFA Magazine, she takes time to share her personal insights and key takeaways from that evening.
CFA Magazine: The importance of interdisciplinary collaboration alongside a commitment to public engagement and community involvement through art was highlighted by the panelists during the symposium. How can museums evolve into institutions that aim to respond to contemporary societal challenges in this way and shift from merely exhibiting art to producing and disseminating contemporary knowledge?
Elizabeth Chodos: Our transformation from Miller Gallery to ICA Pittsburgh represents an evolution from an on-campus, or campus-embedded, gallery into a civic public resource for the city, for CMU and for the art world. I want to reshape people’s relationship to art as something that they consider as an everyday resource for better understanding their lives. I want to change the perception that art is an elite thing that is hard to understand or inaccessible. Art is about bringing people together around ideas and conversation can be the foundation of community.
Contemporary art's larger relevance in society is also key at this moment in time — the perspective of artists, how they unpack contemporary life as it unfolds, and how they create meaning about current issues that are happening in real time.
CFA: You believe that immediate one-to-one interaction with art is always going to be a central experience, but that it’s not the only way. In our changing media landscape, can art institutions also foster meaningful dialogue online amidst social polarization?
Chodos: We will do exhibitions … there will always be art installed in the space. That is a core principle of how art exists in the world. But it’s not the only way we can gather people around ideas. It’s also about meeting people where they’re at, where they already congregate online.
As critical as I am of the current media landscape and how social media has fermented a lot of disconnection, I also think it’s where people go to connect. So, to really embrace that, we need to try and use an artist’s innovation and creativity and ways of thinking about things differently to engage with that space in new and unexpected ways. It’s not just about promoting things or making a statement. There are ways we can bring artists in to think more expansively about these platforms and how we use them.
CFA: You cited Triple Canopy as one of your case studies and an example of this mindset.
Chodos: Yes, they are really good at producing events and recording them in different ways. But instead of treating the recording as verbatim documentation, they reimagine the recorded materials into artwork or something else that lives online in its own right. They don’t have to be true to the live experience because what they’re trying to do is create an online experience.
CFA: Is that a pathway for ICA Pittsburgh?
Chodos: I think that being flexible and mutable based on where you are displaying things is important. But to be perfectly frank, I’m not sure yet. These are the questions that we are grappling with, so I don’t have concrete answers. And I don’t really know that I can until we’re open and doing the work, experimenting and failing, then succeeding, adapting and really putting it forward. Wiping the slate clean, building something from scratch, not defaulting to existing structures or formats — that is what is important to me.
CFA: The symposium panelists cited the importance of bringing partners outside of the arts world into the discussion. Can you elaborate?
Chodos: It’s important [because] otherwise you run the risk of being too navel-gazing, right? If you’re really just talking to people in the arts or artists only, then those are the only perspectives that inform what you’re doing. But if you want to be a civic institution, you need the voices of the folks you want coming through the door to help inform you. If you want a broader audience, you have to have reciprocity and really respect those differing opinions.
The curatorial position for that approach creates a structure that allows voices in but not bad actors to take over. As curators, we can use our expertise to determine: what is the point of view; what does it value; is it coming from a place that is trying to hold space for public discourse and/or teaching something and everyone?
CFA: What would you like to share with readers about CMU’s role in making your vision for ICA Pittsburgh a reality?
Chodos: This type of building would not happen anywhere else. And I say that with the utmost sincerity and with a deep appreciation for the appetite for risk and forward-thinking that it takes to want to put an art museum in a building with computer science and hard sciences, within the Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences.
And I love the fact that this is a place where something exactly like this can happen. I think it’s extraordinary and am honored to even be able to be a part of it. And I’m really excited to see students not feeling like they need to be limited by the definitions of their degree but thinking more broadly or making connections across fields. That is so naturally baked into the architecture of our campus. That is so CMU — a place where things feel possible that just don’t seem possible elsewhere.