Art At Heart Barbara Racker, Cheney Cowles’ New Curator, Brings A Fresh View Of Art To Museum
Someone once tried to insult Barbara Racker by calling her a populist.
Instead, they unwittingly paid her a compliment.
“My attitude is that art can be interesting to all people. It isn’t just for the elite,” says Racker.
She’ll bring that attitude to Cheney Cowles Museum when she officially begins her duties as art curator this Friday.
One of Racker’s first tasks will be to assuage the concerns of local artists and patrons who fear that the abrupt departure of curator Beth Sellars signaled a shift away from the museum’s commitment to contemporary art.
Larry Schoonover, the museum’s deputy director of programs, is painfully aware of the rumors. “That’s why, in putting together a search committee, we tried not just to appease the art community, but to represent the direction we’d like to move in the future” - a more “collaborative” approach to visual arts, one that includes the ideas of other museum staff as well as members of the art community.
“What we discovered during the (1993) Dutch Masters exhibition is that all of us are smarter than one of us,” Schoonover says. “When we get together, one person’s good idea becomes much better through group discussion.”
The search committee, which included city arts director Sue Ellen Heflin and artist Gina Freuen, chose Racker from among 14 applicants.
Racker, whose names rhymes with baker, spent the past three and a half years curating exhibits at the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art in Great Falls, Mont. Prior to that, she did the same for the Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center in Pueblo, Colo.
“Barbara appreciates the importance of visual arts in people’s lives,” says Schoonover. “During her relatively brief career, she’s done a lot of different things in the field.”
Ellensburg “reflector artist” Dick Elliott worked with Racker during an exhibition last year at Paris Gibson, and also with Sellars at Cheney Cowles.
“What Beth did at Cheney Cowles was a stellar performance,” he observes, “probably unmatched by anyone else in the Northwest during her (12-year) tenure.
“Beth is going to be really hard to replace. But I think you have a good one,” says Elliott. “Barbara will be a real champion of contemporary art.”
“My biggest strength is my diversity,” says Racker, 35.
“In the past six and a half years, I’ve done everything from preColumbian to computer-generated shows.”
The one she’s most proud of is “Paintings, Prose, Poems and Prints: Missouri River Interpretations,” a multidisciplinary exhibition inspired by a three-day float trip.
“We had historic railroad lithographs and photos of the upper Missouri right alongside an interactive installation and expressive landscapes. People who came in because they were interested in the whole Lewis and Clark thing were also exposed to contemporary, cutting-edge art.
“When I say I’m a populist,” Racker explains, “I’m not saying I’ll only do shows that everyone likes. What I’m saying is that I think art should be important to everyone’s life.
“I don’t think that all shows have to be popular, but if you only do cutting-edge shows that no one comes to, what’s the point?
“Museums have begun to realize that it’s not good enough to just stick a sculpture on a pedestal and a painting on the wall and that’s that,” Racker says.
“Museums must think in terms of education programs - interpreting the artwork - and when choosing an exhibit, asking how it relates to the community.”
Racker knows that skeptics will be watching her closely during the next few months, but she appears up to the challenge.
“It can be difficult following a curator with such a great reputation,” Racker says, “but I think I have a lot of the same strengths Beth has. I’m a hard worker … I’m very sensitive to artists … and I’m not afraid to get involved in controversy. That’s just part of the job.”
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