the Frye. The place is buzzing and ready to explode on the scene as a new incarnation of itself.
New chief curator and director of collections and exhibitions Robin Held represents, to a large degree, a new era for the museum. Though she is quick to give credit to the team of Frye staff that has long been working up to this moment, and to the foundations laid for this possibility over the last century, Held is poised to lead the museum to define itself anew.
I had the pleasure of spending the morning with Robin Held, recently, and I caught a breathtaking glimpse of the promise of new energy and new ideas in store for the Frye. With sheer delight and exuberant anticipation she described her new role at the museum and the prospects of the Frye’s expanding role in Seattle and beyond:
AF: Where do you see the Frye within the local “art world” dynamic?
RH: The Frye has an important role in the Seattle art ecosystem. Our newly refocused mission statement is so clear and so powerful. It is distinct from other local art institutions that often try to be all encompassing in these statements. What have been clarified are two things that the Frye represents: First, that it is free; not only that it is free but that it will always be free. That’s a big commitment. Second is the focus on representational art. But, rather than a narrow definition of what that has meant, we’re shifting to a focus on the exploration of representational art in all its complexities, not just a single trajectory. It’s representational art as a question rather than an answer.
AF: So, the Frye’s role may be expanding, evolving:
RH: Yes. Broadening the conventional notion of representational art will be really important as we follow that new mission statement. Ultimately the Frye can be at the center of the current discourse on representational art—locally, nationally, and internationally. This will invariably enrich the discourse that occurs in Seattle.
AF: Are there models that you look to as you begin to position the Frye at the center of this discourse?
RH: Some positive models for me as I move forward are the Drawing Center and the 
Asia Society in New York and the Renaissance Society in Chicago, all places that certainly weren’t on anyone’s radar screen at one point and now they have become the places that you look to for scholarly exhibitions and visually compelling exhibitions on whatever specialized niche they have. And I think the Frye can do that too. Other examples I look too have done a successful job of making their collections relevant to contemporary audiences by better integrating them with work shown in temporary exhibitions, like UCLA Hammer, for example.
AF: The Frye Art Museum seems to have maintained a fairly low profile—the lone bastion on the hill that keeps to itself; like a dear old friend that is steady and reliable, it is perhaps perceived as a little too steady.
RH: People think that the Frye is a very old museum. But in a lot of ways it’s a brand new museum. It was accredited only two years ago. The state of the-art building was expanded and renovated in the 1990s. So, the foundation for a dynamic, nationally recognized museum has only been established in the last few years. I have the privilege of entering the scene at this point and building on the legacy that the Fryes, Mrs. Greathouse, Richard West and Debra Byrne built. But it is a really young thing.
AF: In that sense the Frye is both young and old; a beloved historical institution in
Seattle and something that is just now defining itself. How will this “new” museum mature?
RH: I currently see two different models of a museum in operation: one is the donor memorial, Charles and Emma Frye’s incredible civic gift; the other is the Frye as a dynamic contemporary educational institution. Those two models haven’t been integrated to the extent they can be. The Frye’s identity seems schizophrenic that way: there’s the collection and then there are contemporary exhibitions. One goal I have for the new Frye is to better integrate the collection with the temporary exhibitions. I think that will serve not only to reinvigorate the collection and make it seem relevant to contemporary viewers, but also make the contemporary exhibitions seem more thoughtful. There will always be interplay. So that when you come to the Frye it will provide a much richer experience.
AF: Explain what you mean by interplay?
RH: It’s less about a thematic approach than about having all the exhibitions resonate with each other. The architecture lends itself to visitors moving in and out of exhibitions and I want to take advantage of that, being sensitive to the way exhibitions interact, intersect. You move in and out of exhibitions fluidly, you leave one, you go into the other, and these experiences build upon one another. Because of the interplay between exhibitions a viewer might have a different sense of the exhibition he or she just saw informed by the one being experienced now. That’s what I want to do at the Frye.
AF: And the second goal is broadening the conception of representational art?
RH: Exactly. Step one, is to start showing a wider variety of historical and contemporary art that engages recognizable subject matter, as well as exhibitions that dip the Frye’s toes into the complex histories, trajectories and contemporary currents of this art. There are so many other stories to tell beyond the narrative of French academic painting moving forward, as if leading inevitably, to a certain singular genre of contemporary realist painting.
AF: What will this look like? What should we expect in the next year?
RH: When I interviewed for the position of curator, I talked to the board and the staff 
about the fact that in the 21st century, artists create subjects as well as objects. Artists are creating mammals, transgenic bacteria, and other forms of life. And so the whole discourse about representational art has to shift, and from my perspective as a specialist in contemporary art, what I see is that more artists than ever are working with recognizable subject matter, so it seemed like a huge opportunity to look at various histories and the explosive present of representational art. One of the first things we’ll start doing this year is a series of exhibitions that are called “The R Word,” really being explicit about looking seriously and deeply at questions about what representational art has been or can be. The RetroFuturistic Universe of NSK will kick off this series in April. This is a “retro-avant garde” art collective from Slovenia.
AF: How do you see this as a departure for the Frye?
RH: It will introduce new ways of defining representational art, exploring the intersection of art and politics and activating new spaces in the galleries with video. NSK have made copies of many important icons of the twentieth-century avant garde, Social Realism, Socialist Realism, folk art, religious art, and so forth, mixing them all up to great effect. For the Frye, an NSK exhibition is a way of addressing the intersection of representational art and totalitarian politics in the twentieth-century. But I am especially interested in their copies of important abstract artworks. A copy of an abstract work is a representational artwork, just like the copy of a pear or a painting or a stamped envelope. In this way, I’ll be smuggling abstraction into the Frye, but simultaneously advancing the boundaries of what constitutes representation. In this way the discourse is advanced and explored.
AF: Perhaps this is self-evident in what you’ve just been describing, but elaborate on where you see yourself fitting in to the traditional Frye culture and how you see yourself as a catalyst for its evolution.
RH: One of the ways I imagine invigorating the collection is by giving viewers a better
sense of Charles and Emma Frye as art viewers and collectors and not just people who bequeathed some art to the city. A series of exhibitions called Spectatorship and Desire will cast new light on the core collection. First, we’ll hang the collection in salon style, the way the Fryes lived with the work in their own home. I want to focus on the one painting that tipped them over that edge to become art buyers. They went from being viewers of art to being passionate collectors of art in that move. This first part, called “Lust” will imagine what makes anyone take that leap, from which there seems to be no turning back. Following rotations will be called “Loss” and “Love,” which encourage viewers to see their favorite paintings with new eyes and understand themselves as viewers in new ways.
AF: Do you feel you understand what the Fryes intended? Are you communing with their spirits?
RH: Unfortunately there is no information in the will about their collection decisions; there’s much more information about how the collection should be hung. The size of the galleries is specified, the lighting, the arrangement. There are explicitly pedagogical reasons for these specifications. The Fryes were really attuned to how works should be exhibited. They really had specific ideas about exhibitions. And that really interests me. It wasn’t just about the art, it was about how they wanted to look at the art and how they wanted the city to look at the art in perpetuity. So it was really a specific kind of gift. As a curator that’s really interesting. They really cared about exhibitions.
I would like to imagine that I’m following their wishes; that we can fulfill their good intentions and their desire for this work to be seen by lots of people in fresh ways. I hope to do that spirit justice.
AF: Do you feel you have the freedom and support you need?
RH: Yes. The cocktail was mixed. I feel a lot of respect at the Frye for my curatorial ideas and a lot of enthusiasm about the direction the Frye can go. There is a lot of energized focus on its potential. I think everyone here sees that it can be much more compelling, much more engaged, a center rather than a sidebar. And then it’s a matter of bringing the machine to life, making people aware of what’s going on. The first steps have been taken. The foundation is here. The crew is lined up. There’s a lot of room for creativity and curatorial experimentation. I want to put the Frye on the map.