On September 2nd, my classmates and I had the pleasure of meeting Holly Shen, Deputy Director of the San Jose Museum of Art, via Zoom. She provided great insight regarding life as a Deputy Director, Covid-19 museum adjustments and programs, and her career and educational choices. What I found to be most interesting to me was her comments on what her managerial duties look like and her ideas and thoughts about the impact of social media, especially now in our virtually reliant society.
As a Deputy Director, Shen oversees marketing and communications, education, and programming teams. In contrast to some of her previous jobs in NY, her current position is less direct work with the public and local artists, and more team-based check-ins and task maintenance. Even though I don’t necessarily have plans to be working in a museum, I was still intrigued to learn about how she functions as a manager, and what that meant as far as her daily interactions.
Now that Covid-19 has become a huge factor in job, she is constantly meeting with her virtual engagement teams to configure programs to bring the museum to the public as much as possible. Shen said that before the pandemic, the museum’s social media, primarily their Instagram account, wasn’t necessarily a top priority, but has now doubled in size and has been a major outlet for connection to the community. Shen also highlighted that since our new primary form of contact is through virtual means, the overall exchanges between artist and audience, or artist and collector has drastically changed. The level of contact that viewers can now have to an artist through a comments section is a new concept, and how there can now be raw communication between the two like never before is a new factor in the art world. Personally, I really appreciate the raw communication because I think it makes art a more realistic concept for people who don’t consider themselves to “be apart of the art world”, and makes art more accessible to people. I believe it helps minimize stigmas surrounding the art scene.
At the same time, the newfound virtual accessibility to art can cause it to feel mass produced, or possibly watered down because a piece could be reduced to pixels rather than seeing it in its full physical glory. Shen mentioned how her team is trying to not convert their museum to a virtual setting, but rather create an online platform that will do more than just show a VR tour of the museum. Shen praised online artists who have decided to make social media their medium, and have revolutionized the way the art world creates, and by which means. I mentioned during the meeting that during times of strife and struggle, like the Renaissance, artists have persevered and have created new pathways for art to explode into a new era. I agree with Shen, I believe this time is an opportunity, not a misfortune. Artists are creative thinkers, and I don’t think pixels will hinder them from blooming.
