Director’s Letter
Dear Friends,
This will be my final introductory letter to The Nasher, as on June 1 I retire as director of the Nasher Sculpture Center. In these pages, I’ve had the pleasure of sharing thoughts on a range of topics, while watching this publication grow and deepen in purview, in tandem with the Nasher’s programs.
When I started my directorship here 15 years ago, I carried with me some worry as to how I would find the experience of working in a museum dedicated to a single art form. While over the course of my career I had worked a good bit with sculpture and sculptors, all of my prior experience had been in museums and curatorial departments with multiple areas of focus. Happily, it didn’t take me long to understand that I had no cause for concern. Paradoxically, I found the singular focus more liberating than constrictive, easing some decisions, while offering reasons to pursue new and exciting directions.
Even more, I found myself hugely fortunate to be working in the field of sculpture, precisely at a moment that sculpture was demonstrating extraordinary vitality as an art form. Indeed, it has seemed to me that in recent years, sculpture has been the most vibrant of all the art forms, and the Nasher Sculpture Center has very much been in the catbird’s seat.
Sculpture’s current prominence no doubt results from many factors, but important among them, I believe, has been its ability to incorporate ideas, materials, and even methods from other art forms. As we’ve seen at the Nasher, many sculptors continue using the most ancient materials and techniques—stone and wood carving, metal casting, ceramic—to produce remarkable, innovative works, while others continue to bring new expression to the modernist techniques of welding and assemblage, while yet others are uniting sculpture to photography, to painting, to film and to video, to sound, to writing, to social space, and more. I think of it sometimes as sculpture swallowing up every other art form, generating new and compelling hybrid expressions.
One would be hard put to find a better example of this than the works in our current exhibition of Sarah Sze. Conceived as a meditation on different ways of apprehending and experiencing sculpture, these works not only include a diversity of common three-dimensional objects, but also painted and photographic images, ambient sound, and projected video. A range of art forms are brought together, creating sculptural works that offer experiences that are seamless, engaging, and thought-provoking.
Another concern I felt when I arrived at the Nasher in 2009 was about the staff. I suppose most anyone who walks into a new job wonders how they will find their new colleagues. The answer to that question is evident when you realize that several members of our senior team, as well as others across the museum, have been here since before I came. And many of our team who were hired after I arrived, have still been here for many years. Overall, our staff retention has been remarkable, and that’s a good thing—our team has been unfailingly creative, innovative, diligent, responsible, collaborative, collegial, and cohesive. In short, a joy.
And finally, while I had slight familiarity with Dallas and its art community, I didn’t know the friends and supporters of the Nasher. The interest and support, the thoughtful, critical engagement, the loyalty and enthusiasm that I’ve found here—whether from artists or art collectors, experienced art enthusiasts and interested novices—has been nothing short of extraordinary. Over the years, I’ve seen a true community grow around the Nasher, and the keen interest and warm embrace of that community has consistently inspired me to reach further and accomplish more.
The last exhibition to open during my tenure will be with the Haas Brothers, whose beautiful, often fanciful work often operates at the intersection of sculpture and functional design. Twin brothers who grew up in Texas and work now in California, it feels somehow appropriate to me that their trajectory mirrors mine, if in reverse.
In the fall, after I’ve departed, we’ll open two exhibitions, one a survey of Hugh Hayden, a Dallas native now resident of New York, whose primary medium has been carved wood, with which he achieves things one might not have imagined possible. Our second show, with Los Angeles-based Samara Golden, will occupy the Lower Level Gallery, transforming that space in a way that seems to defy logic and profoundly challenge understanding. Though I’ll no longer be working here, I’m excited to visit these shows, where I’ll hope to see you as we share the experiences.
So for now, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you for the joy of a lifetime.
Very best,
Jeremy Strick
Director