Curators We Love: Ariel Plotek

CURATORS WE LOVE

Ariel Plotek

Photo: Courtesy the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

As Curator of Fine Art at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Dr. Ariel Plotek is shaping new audiences’ understandings of the artist as well as the museum’s planned new space. He joined the O’Keeffe after holding a variety of museum and teaching positions, most recently as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the San Diego Museum of Art. He holds MA and PhD degrees from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and completed his BA at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.

However, some of Plotek’s most formative experiences in art happened in the painting studio of his father, Leopold Plotek. “Curators are often a bit disconnected from the idea of making art,” he says. “We see artists as an alien species. We revere them, but we don’t understand them. It was my assumption for a long time that I was going to follow the artist path myself, but I ended up writing about art rather than making it. Our love of art is something my father and I share. I just happen to go to work in an office instead of a studio.” Evokation: How has your understanding of and relationship with Georgia O’Keeffe’s work changed since you’ve joined the O’Keeffe Museum?

Ariel Plotek: My understanding of her aesthetic has really changed since coming to this museum. Looking at her work with Dale Kronkright, Head of Conservation at the museum, has been enlightening. I’ve begun to think of O’Keeffe as a technician, as an experimenter, and as someone whose practice is very consistent, whether she’s working with paint, pastels, watercolor, or drawings with pencil and charcoal. The subtleties of her technical approach fly in the face of the image of artists as spontaneous and impulsive creators. O’Keeffe’s painting practice was anything but frenzied. It was careful and calculated.

Evokation: How do you balance introducing new fans to O’Keeffe’s work while continuing to surprise and delight longtime aficionados?

Plotek: In the 25-year history of the museum, we’ve had quite a lot of evolution on that front. When the museum first opened, it was guessed that visitors were already familiar with O’Keeffe, and that they would come and see in this context an exquisite collection of works from all periods—a sort of mini-survey. In some ways, the museum was conceived in a spirit of reverence, to make a place that would be, for many people, a place of pilgrimage. It served an audience that wanted to stand in silent contemplation before the work. But we aim to create a museum that does more than that.

Something we have observed over the course of the museum’s life is that visitors here have as much interest in the life of O’Keeffe the person, who is as iconic in her own right as her most recognizable painted subject. They come to us with as much curiosity to understand the individual as to understand the art. This has led us to create an exhibition opening in December, Making a Life, that’s about O’Keeffe the maker—in the current sense of the word. She made some of her own clothes, and led a farm-to-table life in Abiquiú. It’s about O’Keeffe as a symbol of self-sufficiency and independence that is very relevant to today. It’s a way to speak to new audiences rather than keep telling the art-historical narrative, which, in some ways, is a story that’s already been told—though we’re not finished investigating O’Keeffe’s art, not by a long shot.

Evokation: What exhibitions can O’Keeffe fans look forward to this summer?

Plotek: We’re planning a photography show, Georgia O’Keeffe— A Life Well Lived: Photographs by Malcolm Varon (April 7–October 31, 2022), of a group of 25 images by the photographer. He took 300 pictures of O’Keeffe and her life in northern New Mexico in the summer of 1977, around the time of her 90th birthday, for a story in ARTNews. One of the things that make these pictures special is that it’s the largest group of color photographs of the artist. It contrasts the image that many of us have of her, as captured in black and white by Alfred Stieglitz. Malcolm’s color images are eye-opening in the view they give us. He captured O’Keeffe laughing, smiling. It’s a relaxed and casual O’Keeffe that we don’t see often. Evokation: The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is planning a new, 54,000-square-foot building on the site currently occupied by the Museum’s Education Annex, to open in 2025. What opportunity does this present for museumgoers?

Plotek: We’re soliciting feedback to make sure the building we’re building responds to what this community actually wants and needs. It’s taught me to question a lot of my assumptions about what visitors want and most appreciate. We have the opportunity to design the museum of the future, but that’s not going to happen unless our conversations involve as many people as possible, from museumgoers to non-museumgoers, from O’Keeffe scholars to students. It’s a thrilling opportunity!

Georgia O’Keeffe—A Life Well Lived: Photographs by Malcolm Varon April 7, 2022 – October 31, 2022

—Ashley M. Biggers

Malcolm Varon, Georgia O’Keeffe at Ghost Ranch, 1977 (print date 2021) archival pigment photograph; loan, Malcolm Varon