The University Art Museum Director: Miki Garcia
“If young audiences understood that museums cared about the issues they care about, they would be more inclined to give; when we represent more, we will be supported by more.”
5 QUESTIONS WITh Miki Garcia
Director, Arizona State University Art Museum
Phoenix, Arizona
Miki Garcia was appointed Director of the Arizona State University Art Museum in December 2017. She was recently the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara from 2005-2017. Prior to this, she worked at the Public Art Fund, N.Y. from 2001 to 2004. From 1999 to 2001 Garcia was a Curatorial Associate at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and has also worked at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
At MCASB, Garcia worked with numerous emerging as well as internationally recognized artists including, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Sanford Biggers, Michele O’Marah, Mickalene Thomas, Dasha Shishkin, Tam Van Tran, and Mario Ybarra, Jr. She has also completed numerous scholarly and professional publications and has taken part in juries and guest lectures including most recently Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue, Creative Capital, The Santo Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
As Director of ASUAM, Garcia manages the staff, facilities, budget, public relations, audience development, fundraising, programs, and exhibitions. In addition, she leads ASUAM with respect to curatorial and program development and community involvement. Garcia holds a BA from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY and a MA in Latin American art from the University of Texas at Austin. She speaks Italian and Spanish, and is passionately committed to making contemporary art accessible to all communities.
ASU Art Museum’s mission is to be a meeting point for the exchange of new ideas, perspectives and experiences among artists, students and the public through our exhibitions, residencies, collections and programs. The museum forges meaningful connections across all areas of research in order to create a better, more sustainable future.
1. What is the role of the university museum in 2023? What makes university museums unique among presenting institutions?
ASU Art Museum is guided by ASU’s charter which states that we measure ourselves not by who we exclude but whom we include and how well they succeed. ASU has a set of design principles that fundamentally argue for the positive role and presence of universities within communities. Such is the argument of a university art museum, that our presence should be a positive force for social good to the communities we serve. What makes university art museums different is their ability to harness the breadth and depth of knowledge being produced in universities (via research, scholarship, libraries, labs) and deploy them for the greater community and make these available to the artists we commission and invite.
2. With the motto “Arte para todos. Art for all”, the museum poses the following questions: “What if centering social justice restored public trust in museums? What if museums, designed to honor objects, change their model to honor people?” Tell me more and how your programs enact this mission.
The Museum puts people over property and thereby disrupts the classical order of museums as repositories and caretakers of objects. Instead, it thinks of artworks as vehicles to create better conditions for humanity - championing artists, storytelling, connection and living culture keeping. How do we do that…well, we aim to be transparent in the ways we hoard power and resources. We are changing our curatorial practices, collections and acquisitions practices, relationship building practices, knowledge production and distribution practices - at every turn we are thinking about how to center those most marginalized by institutions and how we can re-create policies and procedures with this in mind.
3. As an advocate for diversifying audiences and engaging communities beyond traditional arts constituencies, I’m curious what specific opportunities you see for increased support of local arts ecosystems?
The ASU Art Museum starts with place and honors where we are, who we are, and what we need here in this place we live, work and play, which is Tempe, Arizona, a land occupied and stewarded by Tohono Odom and Peeposh communities. We don’t think of binaries such as local/national…but find ways to integrate a sense of place in our thinking about audiences and programs.
4. At ASU, you say: “We center art and artists in the service of social good and community wellbeing.” As we work to better articulate the cultural economy’s social value and impact, how do we successfully center and communicate well being, care, and social good?
We start by naming an open secret that no museum is “neutral.” We have to agree that museums are civic cultural institutions with an obligation to not only “serve” but be owned and guided by the communities we are in. That means that anyone involved in our Museum should be committed to understanding our civic urgencies, needs, demographics, as well as dreams and aspirations. Working from that vantage point — whether in development or curatorial or finance — changes the dynamics of decision making and positional power.
5. Year after year, arts giving has remained stagnant at 4% of overall private charitable giving. Next era donors — new wealth creators and those inheriting the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history — are turning away from the arts to support areas they see as greater drivers of social progress and justice. How does cultural patronage and the practice of philanthropy most need to evolve to create sustainable and resilient 21st century arts institutions?
Museums need to make the case that they are for “good.” And not purely for art, as though this exists in some silo. People are increasingly attracted to philanthropic giving around needs - artists have the power to envision new worlds, new solutions - for all manners of issues from climate change to housing to mass incarceration. We need to put artists at the table and deploy their creativity and imagination. If audiences, especially young audiences, understood that museums cared about the issues they care about, they would be more inclined to give. But we need to also move away from private support from the wealthy elite to create more democratic models of earned income and sustainability. When we represent more, we will be supported by more.
The Path Forward interview series, an initiative of MCW Projects LLC, investigates how cultural and philanthropic leaders are re-envisioning the future.