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joe melillo, the artistic director of bam was the guest speaker in my cultural affairs reporting class tonight. it's interesting hearing from people that are sort of top administrators of their fields, i.e., david a. ross, the former director of the whitney, now melillo. ross had a lot to say about the political workings of museums, whereas melillo was really about the ideas behind his institution and jet-setting around the world to see diamond-in-the-rough artists. i guess it makes sense: ross fled the whitney and was forced out of sfmoma, whereas melillo has been at the same place for 22 years.
paraphrased notes from melillo:
the citadel of perceived culture is manhattanposted October 12, 2004 in art, delivery, performance, print. 20012000
bam brings very specific cultural eents. it's a curated season of individual choices: dance, theater, opera, music.
i have gestapo files on art and culture in the world.
i have a greedy appetite for art.
industrial-strength travel
i try to understand what a younger artist is trying to do. bam is where you bring the end of your experiment ... smaller places are a breeding ground ... recognize that an aesthetic is being developed, and i want to monitor it.
once you put it up there, someone's gonna respond to it
specific cultures are supporting different kinds of art making ... the world is aggressively moving forward ... and it's affecting your generation and younger art makers.
i'm a very informal person who just takes his work very seriously.