Ian Karp Interview
BY PETER NOMELAND
Ian Karp is a 2020 graduate from the University of Minnesota. Now working at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Karp has had the opportunity to work on major exhibitions at the Mia such as the “Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi.” Karp shares some of his favorite parts of being a curatorial assistant and advice for students who want to pursue careers in public history.
What did you study in college, and how did you get your job at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia)?
I studied art history and classics at the U and graduated peak-pandemic in December 2020. In the classroom I was most interested in how antiquity is received by later generations, but at the heart of my studies was always this idea that human expression is sacred and that there is value and understanding to be drawn from the past. I think human experience is timeless and that art and writing--no matter how old, how high or low, how fine or crude--provide insight into people's lives and ultimately help us show more empathy toward one another.
While I was still a student I had the opportunity to steward a massive archive of zines and comics that Mia had recently purchased. It took almost three years, with regular interruptions for other exhibitions, catalogs, and smaller projects, but I was able to see the zines through from acquisition to exhibition. I finished that project last summer, in 2021, and pivoted full-time to "Botticelli and Renaissance Florence."
What drew you to museum work?
Working with objects, art and cultural artifacts, tout court. There's an almost paralyzing feeling I get when holding or standing before something with cultural, historical, or spiritual significance, and museums are the best place to chase that feeling.
My love for museum work is also about being a part of something larger than myself. I feel like the work I do contributes to a larger, never-ending human project about understanding, preservation, and transformation. It doesn't quite matter that I won't see that project through, but I feel relaxed knowing that I am helping as best I can.
What are your latest projects? And what projects are the highlight of your time at the MIA so far?
My work with the zine archive and Botticelli, of course, but I also really enjoyed working on a show that ran concurrently with the zines called "Sixties Psychedelia." It was a small display of twenty-some psychedelic rock posters advertising concerts and light shows in San Francisco during the late sixties. I collect records (I just passed 350) and listen to psychedelic rock, blues, and psych-folk, so it was really fun to work from home and spin albums by the bands whose concerts and promotional material I was writing about.
I have two projects outside of the museum currently, one is academic and the other is for my own curiosity. There's an ancient poem called Metamorphoses by a Roman poet named Ovid. It's a continuous narrative of mythological and historical vignettes, each climaxing with a transformation, and is one of the most frequent sources for mythological painting in Western art. I'm looking at early woodcut illustrations of particular myths from the poem, trying to see how the composition of the woodcuts mediated Ovidian myth to later artists. My other project is very casual. I'm compiling an archive of images of hands in a variety of poses, mostly from paintings I work with, and for no particular reason: hands folded in prayer, a hand holding the hand of another, grabbing an arm, pointing in accusation, holding one's heart in admiration or in pain, et cetera. Hands communicate a lot and I find the variety worth documenting in my spare time.
What is the best part of your job?
Those precious moments of wonder, encounter and discovery. When I have a question and am eventually rendered vigilant by the answer. Leaving my desk to stroll the galleries isn't so bad either.
What is something that makes the Mia special?
Mia is free. You can walk right through the lobby, take the stairs to the third floor, and look at two Georgia O'Keefe paintings without saying a word to anyone. The Walker Art Center is not free, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is not free, and The Art Institute of Chicago is not free. Mia is free.
Favorite class at the U?
Spencer Cole teaches a class called "Greek Tragedy in Translation" and I can't recommend it enough. You're encouraged to be creative with the writing assignments, there's opportunity to see theater, and then of course the tragedies. I think it's a CLA writing intensive too, so the class attracts students from a variety of departments, which makes discussing the plays fun and insightful. But also, take at least one art history or comparative literature class.
Career goals in the near future? What about in 10 years?
I'd like to keep moving through the museum field and continue to work with culture, but I'm hitting a ceiling with my BA so I'm shopping around for graduate programs right now. I'd like to go somewhere abroad, maybe in the UK.
In ten or fifteen years I want a goat farm and to live a very different life than I do now.
What role do you think museums have in our society? How have you seen this evolving?
I think of museums as permanent but also inherently human. Right now many museums need to practice flexibility and test the limits of their ability to change. They should at once be stable but also transformative and mutable. They need to document and preserve but should never deny experience for reasons of conservation. Rauschenberg has this litho titled Centennial Certificate that he made for the Met's 100th anniversary. At the center he composed his own text redefining the mission of the museum: "TREASURY OF THE CONSCIENCE OF MAN... TIMELESS IN CONCEPT THE MUSEUM AMASSES TO CONCERTISE A MOMENT OF PRIDE SERVING TO DEFEND THE DREAMS AND IDEALS APOLITICALLY OF MANKIND... AWARE AND RESPONSIVE TO THE CHANGES NEEDS AND COMPLEXITIES OF CURRENT LIFE WHILE KEEPING HISTORY AND LOVE ALIVE"
In your opinion, what are the current biggest problems museums need to work on solving?
Museums have been experiencing a bit of an existential crisis over the past couple years. There is a lot of emphasis on reevaluating missions right now but I think the field badly needs vision. People who see clearly the museum of the future and are ready to do the hard work of getting us there. More and more I think museums are realizing that their first allegiance needs to be to artwork that showcases the true diversity of human experience, shown in a timely and transparent fashion. Artwork is powerful and people come to museums to experience that power first hand. The Botticelli show is a testament to that.
Biggest career related advice for students who want to go into public history or museum work?
Say yes to every opportunity and try to get connected with strangers. Take informational interviews, check out all the books you want from the library while you are still a student, and try to find or create non-institutional channels for your work.