Photograph by Attilio D'Agostino, courtesy of The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
Kristina Van Dyke, the new director of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, has hit the ground running since taking the helm early last month, coming to us from her former position as Curator for Collections and Research at the Menil Collection in Houston. Van Dyke, who has a Ph.D from Harvard, sat down with Look/Listen to let us in on what she's exploring for the space's next exhibit, what she loves about what's happening there now and what the foundation's greatest hits have been.
L/L: What is it you like best about the Pulitzer? What drew you to want to be part of the organization?
The Pulitzer is constantly evolving. We want to continue that. We're an institution without a collection so we're wide open in terms of what we can do. Single artist exhibitions, thematic shows, having a living artist take over the space—this is the kind of thing the Pulitzer can do. This is the reason I came to work here. It's a huge experiment. The Pulitzer is only open two days a week—there are things happening almost every day inside the Pulitzer. We're serving the public in a big sense; it's not necessarily equated with open doors. That's part of our function as a laboratory.
We've never had an Asian collection before. The curator [of the current exhibition, [Reflections of the Buddha] was thinking about Tadao [Ando, the building's architect] and reached out to the Buddhist art community, reached out to advisers and put on a show that you couldn't imagine anywhere else. We can support scholarship by young scholars, we can support other organizations in conservation. We've connected with the Buddhist world in an exciting way.
Just this moment, too. It's 10 years old, it's taking shape. It's really exciting. We're in a really exciting process of going through the past 10 years of our history, thinking about what we've done and why—community projects, collaborations—which have made the most exciting contributions to the idea of art. We're assessing the incredible decade and deciding which of the projects and experiments we think are best and what we want to push forward on.
L/L: What are you working on now?
A show called Love in Africa that will be in three venues: Lagos, Houston and St. Louis. It opens here next fall. This is my first really contemporary project.
It raises questions about what part of love is universal. Where do notions of love come from, in the West and in Africa? How do these ideas travel, how do geography or culturally specific ideas inform ideas of love. Think about polygamy or arranged marriage—how do I think about that, as a Western woman? How recent the idea of romantic love is! Arranged marriage played with my own notions of free will. Free will is hugely important in Western notions of love.
What role does language play in organizing ideas about love? There are words that carry this theme forward. How do these ideas of love, how does this image of love appear? What makes one vision versus another take hold? There are works in the show that look at the internet and cell phones. How do things like technological and economic systems move ideas of love around the world—and also the printed word, film? When do ideas take hold? How do ideas move back and forth?
In Mali, people my age were asking questions about the social constructs. They didn't enjoy aspects of their fathers having multiple wives, and said they wouldn't repeat it. There were people there bucking the system of arranged marriage. They found their partner and married them. It was interesting to observe—could it be sustained? Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
Marriage, romantic love, notions of friendship: they all change over time. It makes you think really hard about the way you assume that emotion is natural or biological.
L/L: And how is St. Louis treating you? Where do you live?
I'm in Lafayette Square. The parks in St. Louis are great. There's so much free stuff to do. It's an incredibly open and generous city in that way. I'm excited about the trails and outdoor activities. I went to Cahokia, that was really cool. I'm excited about the big project to connect the Arch and the city.
