Scott Rothkopf, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Whitney Museum of American Art

By Lydia McGinn ’22

When preparing questions for Scott Rothkopf, the Chief Curator of the Whitney Museum, I focused on his process for acquiring new works of art and curating exhibitions on contemporary artists like Jeff Koons. In what areas might he be taking new and progressive approaches to curation? I assumed that progress would coincide with making new additions to the Whitney’s collection or working with more modern artists. Therefore, I was surprised and intrigued by the emphasis Rothkopf placed on the Whitney’s preexisting, diverse collection and how it forced him out of his comfort zone as a curator. He described how, when he became the curator at the Whitney, he suddenly felt like the “stepparent” to thousands of works he did not choose—tasked with the profound duty to accurately display and represent them given their historical context, without repeating omissions of the past. He seemed particularly concerned with the interface between the concerns of a modern public and the issues raised by the older works of art in the Whitney’s collection. Contrary to the notion that socially conscious and progressive art is a function of modernity, Rothkopf reiterated the radical potential of the Whitney’s historical collection when curators see it through new lenses—as is exemplified by recent efforts to elevate the work of queer artists, women artists, and artists of color, who systematic forces of oppression have historically kept out of the galleries. 

Rothkopf’s approach to curation—including his process of delving into historical archives and reevaluating them through modern lenses and his emphasis on the power of space and the way exhibitions are arranged to impact the viewer—raised questions for me about the boundary between art and curation. For example, installation artist Fred Wilson also creates exhibitions that reframe and reassess the works in museums’ permanent collections, often placing explicit emphasis on the way methods of display impact viewer perception. Wilson, however, considers himself an artist, not a curator (González). Other artists, like Andy Warhol, Wes Anderson, and Juman Malouf have also highlighted the overlap between the artist’s manipulation of materials and the curator’s manipulation of space by creating their own exhibits from existing collections (Domus). The way Scott Rothkopf, perhaps inadvertently, placed art and curation in parallel drew attention to the malleable boundary between the two, and heightened my awareness of the analytical and emotional aspects of both processes. 

Works Cited

González, Jennifer A. Subject to Display: Reframing Race in Contemporary Installation Art. Reprint edition, The MIT Press, 2011.

“The Sarcophagus of a Shrew and More Such Gems, All Selected by Juman Malouf and Wes Anderson in Vienna.” Domus, Editoriale Domus, accessed 13 October 2019. https://www.domusweb.it/en/art/2018/11/20/the-sarcophagus-of-a-shrew-and-more-such-gems-all-selected-by-juman-malouf-and-wes-anderson-in-vienna.html.