Taking Risks in Ridgefield–Interview by Nancy Barnes
Originally printed in ARTnews How to Start Collecting, January 2007
As director of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Harry Philbrick has made the small-town institution an outlet for experimental-and provocative-work.
It's like the difference between an off-Broadway venue and Broadway," says Harry Philbrick, describing the relationship of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, to the museums of nearby New York. "The actor and artist might be a little more willing to experiment than they would be on Broadway."
As the Aldrich's director for the past ten years, Philbrick has gradually been raising the noncollecting institution's profile as a place for young and midcareer artists to take chances. Currently on view, for instance, is a show by Josh Azzarella, the 32-year-old winner of last year's Emerging Artist Award – a $5,000 annual prize that Philbrick introduced at the museum in 1997. Running through the 25th of next month, the exhibition features videos and photographs of horrific events, including the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which Azzarella doctors to produce alternative, peaceable outcomes. "We are showing a lot f politi al art tight at the moment,” Philbrick says.
A boyish 47-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair who often wears jeans to work, Philbrick has more than doubled the muum annual attendance to 30,000, in part by presenting
provocative shows. He has also collaborated with curators to produce some notable successes. In 2005 he worked with Stuart Horodner and Sara Kellner to put together "Contemporary Erotic Drawing,' a critically acclaimed survey of sexually explicit works by such artists as Cecily Brown and Chris Ofili. Embracing a side of art rarely seen in other institutions, the exhibition became one of the museum's biggest draws.
“People said, 'It's not my type of art, but it's a really good show,'" says Neil Marcus, chairman of Aldrich's board of trustees. 'Harry has this idea, which I support, that you have to get art to the public. And you get art to people with a show that appeals to them."
Born in Rhode Island, Philbrick immersed himself in contemporary art as a student at Columbia University where he studied art history while working part-time for dealer Leo Castelli and taking painting lessons with abstractionist Judith Rothschild. (Philbrick's Minimalist canvases now adorn his office at the Aldrich, but he says that he hasn’t exhibited his work in many years.) After the death of his mother forced him to leave school suddenly, Philbrick moved to London and earned an M.F.A. at the University of London s Goldsmith College in 1990. He retruned to New York and began working at the Museum of Modern Art as a staff lecturer in 1992. Two years later he took a job at The Aldrich as director of education and became the institution's head in 1996.
“It’s like the difference between an off-Broadway venue and Broadway, the actor and artist might be a little more willing to experiment than they would be on Broadway.”
Founded in 1964 by fashion designer Larry Aldrich on the main street of Ridgefield's historic district, the museum has always been an anomalous presence in the traditionalist town. But Philbrick has engaged the area's residents, launching creative outreach programs, including one that trains fifth graders to be docents at the museum. He has also gained the support of influential Connecticut residents-like Paul Newman, who lives in Westport-and has encouraged New Yorkers to visit the museum by offering a $5 round-trip bus service from Manhattan for openings. An indication that these strategies have paid off is that The Aldrich's annual budget has risen fourfold under Philbrick's directorship to $2.5 million, with much of the money coming from local patrons.
Philbrick barn ed this support to build . an 8 m11. h. on ex- pan ion to the Aldrich s campus in 2004 quadrupling the gallery space to 11,000 square feet. Designed by Tappé Associates the new building has a warm mahogany and white clapboard facade. Interior walls and floors are easily replaceable o that artists can punch through them to install outsize or unorthodox works. The museum has also added a sculpture garden which last summer accommodated “Velimir Chlebnikov,” an exhibition of naval paintings by German artist Anselm Kiefer that was housed in a temporary building designed to replicate the artist's studio. Philbrick says there no are also plans to build an artist-in-residence site at the museum although its exact form remains uncertain.
Despite the many changes that have taken place under his directorship, Philbrick says, the Aldrich’s success can be best ascribed to its founder, who died in 2001. Larry really believed in artists, and he believed in supporting them as they led the way," he says. “I completely share that vision.”