I haven’t got a picture of Tom Krens in my book on museums because on Google every picture looked the same – the picture of an archetypal businessman, which I thought I could live without. But looking further, I have discovered a picture which I would have liked to use, but didn’t spot, from the Bennington Banner some time in the mid-1980s. It shows Joe Thompson on the left, who has just stood down as Director of Mass MoCA after 22 years, Tom Krens on the right, and I assume it is the young Michael Govan in the middle, making plans for Mass MoCA, which developed into the global expansion of the Guggenheim, the opening of Dia Beacon, and now the demolition of LACMA – a very evocative image of three people planning a museum revolution:-
wonderful and telling photograph but also mildly wondering that you objected to a museum director looking like a businessman – they are businesses, the arts are not businesses but you need business skills…..budgets, physical environments, managing staff and even in a mad way shareholders from boards to visitors…..
Dear Marina, True enough. I just didn’t want the book too full of pictures of men of a certain type ! Charles