In Conversation with James Glisson, Newly Appointed SBMA Chief Curator

On the wings of his curated Santa Barbara Museum of Art exhibition of the Ridley-Tree Collection, Contemporary Art Curator James Glisson,PhD, has moved into a new role as the museum’s Chief Curator. He was appointed to the position by Eichholz Foundation Executive Director Amada Cruz, who said in her press release, “I am delighted that James has agreed to lead the curatorial programs at the Museum. His commitment to scholarly rigor and community outreach sets us on a strong course for the future.” Glisson will remain the Contemporary Art Curator, as well.

The appointment coincided with his new Contemporary Art exhibition titled, In the Making: Contemporary Art at SBMA, with all the works except one from the museum’s permanent collection. During his time at the SBMA, he has acquired over 100 art works for the museum. In light of these announcements, Glisson and I met for a conversation. 

Q. How do you view your role as Chief Curator?

A. I really do see my role as creating platforms and structures so that the other curators – Charlie Wylie, Curator of Photography and New Media, and Susan Tai, the Elizabeth Atkins Curator of Asian Art – can do the shows and projects they want to do. That’s the most important part of my role, to make the space and foundations so they can do what they need to do. What’s nice is I get to build connections and relations for the museum and for others. The museum can give living artists a boost through exhibition and acquisitions. We have an active local community of artists and collectors, and we are part of the greater Los Angeles community which is an important international art center we are in dialog with.

What is your main focus?

What I’m focused on is what the other two curators are focused on, what Amada is focused on, what the board is focused on and what the staff is focused on. We all have an incredible amount of alignment around three areas, one: more community collaboration and partnerships; two, we are embarking on reinstalling the permanent collection and breaking barriers of having it displayed in separate galleries as American, Latin or European art, and mixing it up and having a display that reflects the global conversations that are and have been happening in the art world for a very long time. To have exhibitions that reflect the networks and conversations the artists themselves were having. Many of these national boundaries aren’t that meaningful within the art world in terms of the dialog artists have. The last area is to continue to support significant exhibitions and ones that have a focus of local, California and national art – to have a balanced program of that, which provides a rich and productive dialog. 

What acquisitions are you most happy to have made thus far for the SBMA?

Sincerely, I’m proud of all of it. One of the pieces I’ve gotten the most feedback on is, Narsiso Martinez’sSelf-Portrait En La Cherry (with Strawberry Fields Forever in the Background) [2020]. It’s a self-portrait and we got it right out of his studio. Many who view it are affected by the work for various reasons.

Tell us about the new exhibit…

Many of the acquisitions have come in the last four years, another portion ten years ago, and a few gifts that date back to 1970s. The inspiration was from a quote attributed to Gertrude Stein, “You can be a museum, or you can be modern, but you cannot be both.” I thought that was a provocation. I think if you if you can accept that contemporary art is always evolving and changing and you’re always going to be behind the curve, then it’s art in the making, and that is the title of exhibit and what we are showing.

411: www.sbma.net