Reopened Speed Art Museum grapples with start-up pains
In October, the Speed Art Museum became the first place in Louisville to show the Academy Award-winning film “Moonlight.”
The museum’s CEO, Ghislain d'Humieres, knows that is not exactly what people would have expected from the state’s largest and oldest art museum, which reopened a year ago this weekend after a three-and-a-half year closure and a $60 million expansion.
In its first year, the Speed has shown that stretching Louisville's imagination is what can be expected as it has welcomed a mix of people across the community each week during free admission Sundays, constructed programs with games and activities where people learn about art and the world, and worked with other arts groups to stage events inside and outside the museum.
d'Humieres and others had high expectations for the Speed, including annual attendance of 200,000.
That hasn’t happened. Instead, the museum counted roughly 125,000 visitors – 75,000 less than museum leaders anticipated – near the end of February.
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Last summer, when the museum noticed attendance wasn’t reaching anticipated levels, vigilant leaders – who were also closely watching the institution's bottom line – took action and laid off seven employees.
“Two years ago, if you’d have asked me if being closed for three years would be a problem, I would have told you no," he said. "Now, I say yes. It was a drawback and more than any of us were expecting."
When the museum ended its fiscal year in September, its budget was roughly $11.5 million in the black, with some $175,000 to spare.
Today, halfway through its fiscal year with a budget of $8 million, d’Humieres was coy about the budget situation, describing it as “manageable” and something "we review every quarter and actively adjust ... as needed."
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But while d’Humieres and other leaders keep their eyes on the bottom line, they also have to remain keenly aware of public reaction to the mix of free Sundays, movie screenings and niche art exhibits and activities both inside and outside of the museum's walls. Taking in all these variables, they said, are helping them map the Speed's course to lure more people to the museum and garner a larger, more diverse audience.
“It may take more than a year because we are really like a start-up,” he said. “We want to make the Speed a dynamic center for the whole community.”
A nexus for different walks of life
Many visitors, but especially those coming through the doors on the free-admission Sundays, range widely in age and ethnic backgrounds. The mix is representative of the diversity the Speed has been angling for as it hopes to increase community dialogue about art.
That mix also was on hand when the museum hosted 11 sold-out runs of “I Am Not Your Negro,” the Oscar-nominated documentary based on James Baldwin’s writing, most followed by post-screening discussions at the museum's high-tech cinema.
The first seven screenings sold out in less than two days without any publicity other than a listing on the museum website, said Speed film curator Dean Otto. He added four more shows to meet the overwhelming demand.
“I knew it was a film that would resonate locally and that I wanted to involve many organizations from around the city,” Otto said.The discussions were led by African-American leaders from across the community, including Lousiville Urban League Executive Director Sadiqa Reynolds and University of Louisville professor and Pan African Studies Department Chair Ricky Jones.
Outside of the cinema, the first big show for the museum, “Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture,” marked a new tack for the institution because it focused on a new area for the museum— 21st-century design. The exhibit— which tells the sneaker’s complex cultural story and its ties to social and political history through nearly 150 pairs of shoes— made several stops at other museums before the Speed. Here, d'Humieres also had high hopes for ticket sales.
The show was a success. “It got us the demographic of people who had never come to the Speed," d'Humieres said. But financially, "it was not a success in ticket sales. It didn’t make the money."
Almost 7,400 guests visited "Out of the Box," which had additional entrance fees for nonmembers. d'Humieres and other museum officials are reviewing and assessing that exhibit's successes and difficulties to help them plan future special exhibitions.
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This period of trial-and-error is expected, d'Humieres said, given the Speed is in a different place than before its closure.
"While elements are similar, there is so much that is so different. It's hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison," he said.
He said the museum has a strong, loyal base that sustains it, but the museum has more to offer the public now.
"Our goal is to continually grow numbers, surpass where we were before the closure and continue to expand and grow through the coming years," he said. "That simply takes time. We had a strong opening year and are hopeful for an equally strong, if not stronger, 2017."
The museum’s current exhibit “Picturing American Indian Cultures: The Art of Kentucky’s Frederick Weygold,” draws from part of the Speed’s collection that it wasn't fully familiar with before it closed. The exhibit contains art and artifacts given to the Speed nearly 80 years ago by Weygold, a respected ethnographer of Native American culture who created illustrations, paintings and photographs and collected Native American art that is displayed. To date, that exhibit has brought in 9,300 visitors. It closes March 26.
Chief Curator Erika Holmquist-Wall said much of the work for the past year has been about getting the museum in Louisville in shape as the staff has been serving the public.
“We’ve also slowly been letting our counterparts know we are back in business and are looking at ways we can partner with and collaborate with other museums in the region or even around the country,” she said.
An unbounded museum
On those bristling Sundays, which remain free through 2021 due to Brown-Forman sponsorship, and throughout the week, nearly half of all Speed visitors head to the basement area called ArtSparks, where people play games that help them understand how colors, shapes and other components of artwork.
“It’s not just for kids,” said Anne Taylor Brittingham, who oversaw the design of this section and holds the title of chief engagement officer. “It’s for everyone, and we’re seeing all ages come there.”
d'Humieres agreed. “When you go to ArtSparks, you see people of different generations around the tables. They are working together,” he said, adding the space is one of the museum's many successes.
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Speed leaders also said they don’t see the need for all activities to happen inside the museum’s walls— or even in Louisville. d'Humieres added that even other arts organizations can consider the Speed "home," citing the Speed Concert Series, established by museum founder Hattie Bishop Speed.
Last month, one of those concerts was incorporated into a Louisville Orchestra performance of snippets of a new score for the classic Russian film “Battleship Potemkin.” The museum’s film department secured the film, the Kentucky Center helped provide the venue and the orchestra did the heavy lifting to provide the music for a remarkable concert where several arts groups shared the spotlight.
Even last weekend, d'Humieres and the rest of the Speed’s leaders welcomed members of other arts organizations at its annual Speed Art Museum Gala, the year’s biggest fundraising event with upward of 750 people. Louisville Orchestra artistic director Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Ballet’s artistic director Robert Curran performed at the event. Just a year ago, members of the ballet, the orchestra and other arts organizations were part of the Speed’s grand reopening festivities.
Both fit d'Humieres’ talk of the Speed as a hub of creativity, where the city's visual arts and performing arts combine under one roof. “We are becoming a set,” he said.
But penetrating barriers also comes in more subtle ways, particularly with some of the museum’s education programs.
One that likely reaches farthest is Art Detectives. The program takes art objects from its collection to classrooms in schools throughout the state. In those classrooms, students don white gloves to touch art and look at it through magnifying glasses to learn about it in new, interactive ways.
Brittingham said Art Detectives and other educational programs often get input from staff members across departments, something she called one of the Speed’s strong assets.
“I think there is a shared philosophy here to try new things and be able to change course when needed. We don’t have to do things the same way we’ve always done things,” she said.
But like d'Humieres, she recognizes that the Speed is somewhat like a start-up.
“It takes time to build these programs and to get the momentum,” she said.
Reach reporter Elizabeth Kramer at 502-582-4682 and ekramer@courier-journal.com. Follow her on Twitter @arts_bureau and on Facebook at Elizabeth Kramer - Arts Writer.
BY THE NUMBERS
General Members: annual gift of $70 to $250
2012 closing: 2,104
2016 re-opening: 1,316
Current: 3,152
Patron Circle Members: annual gift of $500 to $2,500
2012 closing: 199
2016 re-opening: 339
Current: 396
SPEED ART MUSEUM
Where: Speed Art Museum, 2035 S. 3rd St.
Hours: 12-5 p.m. Sunday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday
Admission: $12, adults: $8, senior citizens, military personnel, children, (ages 4 to 17); free, children, 3 and under.
Information: 502-634-2700; www.speedmuseum.org
Speed visitors by location
The top 20 zip codes for patrons
- 40205 – The Highlands
- 40207 – St. Matthews
- 40208 – Old Louisville
- 40206 – Crescent Hill
- 40204 – Germantown / the Highlands
- 40217 – Parkway Village
- 40241 – East End
- 40299 -- Jeffersontown
- 40220 – Hikes Point
- 40214 – Iroquois
- 40245 – East End
- 40222 – Lyndon
- 40059 – Prospect
- 40223 – Anchorage
- 40203 – Downtown Louisville / Smoketown
- 47130 – Jeffersonville, Ind.
- 47150 – New Albany, Ind.
- 40291 – Fern Creek
- 40218 – Buechel
- 40213 – Camp Taylor