Derrick Cartwright

AT 42, DERRICK CARTWRIGHT, the new executive director of the San Diego Museum of Art, has an impressive list of credentials. From 1993 to 1998, he taught art history at the University of San Diego. He has been an art lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; the University of California, San Diego; and the University of Michigan, where he earned his Ph.D. From 1998 to 2000, he was director of the Musée d’Art Americain at Giverny, France. More recently, he was director of the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College. Cartwright and his family live in La Jolla.

TOM BLAIR: The city’s changed a bit in the six years you’ve been gone. What’s the biggest difference?

DERRICK CARTWRIGHT: Downtown—the whole debate around the ballpark that was roiling when I left here has come to complete fruition. I’m excited to see what that means for this community. I’ve already been to a baseball game this summer.

TB: Your background here was in education. In fact, much of your experience has been in academia. Now you’re directing a large, urban art museum. What’s the major difference?

DC: When I fill out those customs declarations in airports, I still identify myself as an art historian. I hope to bring to this job a sense of the scholarly purpose behind museums. At the same time, I’ve tried to learn from a lot of sources. I don’t think, as an academic, I can know everything about the business practices of museums. I’ve worked in Europe, directing a museum there. I’ve seen a very different approach to how museums function, and I’ve learned from that.

TB: Your predecessor was very much interested in art education in the community. Are you going to pursue that?

DC: I admire Don Bacigalupi. It would be silly to dismantle the good things Don has done. But there’s a lot of great work to be done. One thing I’m hoping to bring is new connections to the university communities. There’s UCSD, San Diego State, USD, Cal State San Marcos —all these wonderful research institutions. I want to make sure they feel SDMA is an important resource for them.

TB: San Diego doesn’t have a lot of old family money. And we have few major corporations. How do you plan to expand the financial base for SDMA?

DC: Dartmouth is an old institution, but in rural New Hampshire there are no big corporations. There is a lot of old wealth in the area, but not all of it is connected to Dartmouth. So I got a little experience doing that kind of important fund-raising. In order to take this museum to the next level, I’m going to need the support of this community, and support has to be won by sincerity of effort and hard work. I’m not afraid to do that.

TB: When Don Bacigalupi left for Toledo last year, he confessed he hadn’t had “a sense of the magnitude” of the job when he took the post here at SDMA. “There just wasn’t a good feeling about the place,” he said. How do you feel about the museum you’ve inherited from him?

DC: This is an extraordinary team. Don set some high principles for management. I’ve been in museum jobs where I’ve been introduced and been asked, “Well, what are you going to do for an exhibition program?” The museum was going to open in a few weeks with no sense of where they were going. That’s not the case here. It’s in very good shape. I will try to make some changes and build on the strengths Don has established.

TB: Can you offer some specifics?

DC: What I’m trying to do first is listen, before I go shooting off my mouth. There are lots of good ideas for museums, but not all will work in every place, and not all are welcome in every place. SDMA has done important exhibitions in the past, but too few people know the strengths of this collection. I’d like to see us do exhibitions around those strengths, and send them out into the world so people recognize this is a museum with important resources. We haven’t done that as well as I think we might. I want to see us take a few more risks. This is a place that’s open enough to change that we shouldn’t be the stodgy museum in the community.

TB: In the spring, a $400,000 shortfall forced elimination of five SDMA staff positions—including the museum registrar. How’s that going to affect programming, and what do you hope to do to turn things around?

DC: I don’t know of a museum in the country that hasn’t gone through some reorganization, downsizing. The experience here was rather mild when you think of the museums that are closing in other places. The staff made some very hard choices. I’m grateful I didn’t have to be part of those decisions. I’ve told the staff we’ve got to figure out how to work in challenging times. But if we’re all pulling together, I think we can accomplish good things. I obviously have to take on a role in making a more secure future for this museum. That’s going to mean some fund-raising. I’m not afraid of that.

TB: Is it more difficult to cultivate museum attendance in a city where so many other things compete for our attention?

DC: This place offers so many appealing attractions. So the museum really has to make a case for itself that it’s vital. San Diego is a theater town. And I think the support for those institutions shows how well they’ve done it. The museums have to make just as strong a case for themselves as crucial to the city’s intellectual life. What I want to do is look forward and find ways to engage people again and again. And reach new communities. I think we’ve done a good job of reaching out to some, but not all of San Diego’s communities.

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