Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson wants the Aspen Art Museum to be “all contemporary art all the time.” She became the institution’s director and chief curator in 2005, after serving as curator of the MATRIX Program for Contemporary Art at the Berkeley Art Museum at the University of California at Berkeley. She spoke to The Post about some of her plans:
Q. What is your vision for what this institution should be?
A. We just, through a group session, slightly shifted our goals to become one of the best noncollecting museums in the world. And I think that is a really important thing about the Aspen Art Museum, that we are a kunsthalle, which is a German model.
We don’t have a collection, so our whole focus – our whole program – is about changing exhibitions. And if you’re about changing exhibitions and the focus is on the contemporary, then the big contribution we can make is the production of new works that are premiered at the Aspen Art Museum, and that will facilitate us being a destination.
Q. Where do you see this institution fitting into the set of art museums we have in Colorado?
A. Aspen is not that close to Denver. You can fly to Chicago or Los Angeles in a shorter amount of time than it takes to drive to Denver. I think that’s a challenge. And so we don’t really position ourselves in terms of Denver or any of the other institutions in Colorado per se.
We think of ourselves as participants in a global dialogue that’s happening about art. When there’s something exciting in Denver, that’s great. When there’s something exciting in Los Angeles, that’s great. When there’s something exciting in Auckland, that’s great.
We are interested in positioning ourselves in a larger dialogue, and whoever else is a participant in the conversation, the more the merrier.
Q. Where do plans for a new building stand?
A. The Aspen Art Museum is actively pursuing a downtown location. We’d like to have increased foot traffic. We’d like to have increased visibility. And we want to be an apres-ski destination.
Q. What is the timetable?
A. I hope we’ll have a location secured within the next six months, and we’ll probably begin an architect-selection process in about that same time frame.
