A New Epoch for Art Museum : Michael Botwinick, New Director of Newport Harbor, Walks In With ‘Eyes Wide Open’

Michael Botwinick, named new director of the Newport Harbor Art Museum on Thursday after a 17-month search, met the press Friday morning and maintained that his “eyes were wide open” when he took the job at least five others had turned down.

The 47-year-old former director of the Brooklyn Museum in New York and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, who has worked in commercial art for the last 3 1/2 years, assumes the Newport directorship in the midst of a long-stalled, $50-million campaign to fund and endow a new building. The situation was further complicated last summer when internationally renowned architect Renzo Piano was fired from the project by the museum board.

Several of those who rejected the Newport job cited the campaign and the Piano firing, reportedly instigated by Donald L. Bren, a powerful board member who donated the land earmarked for the new building.

“I know there was substantial disagreement in the community about what was done, and how it was done,” Botwinick said Friday. “What I find extraordinary is (the board’s) openness about how this (situation) has only added to the difficulty of doing the right thing.

“I have to deal with it as a closed chapter. . . . I am comfortable and satisfied that I am exactly where I need to be. My specific understanding is that my job now is to work with the staff and gear up an architecture program. I am told we can start an (architecture) competition, build on what we’ve got now (preliminary designs from New York architects Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates), or go back to square one.

“I have looked at everything Kohn Pedersen has done, and it’s terrific. . . . I love the buildings (the firm has designed) in Chicago and I love (Pedersen’s) mind. (But) if there’s a reason to abandon the work they have done, we’ll do that.

“I now need several months (to see) what’s going to go on in this mythical building,” Botwinick continued, estimating that he will need at least six months but not more than two years.

Botwinick said his first order of business will be to hire a chief curator to replace Paul Schimmel, who left last spring for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Botwinick said he expects no trouble finding the right person, joking that “the line for the curatorial position is much longer than the line for the director’s position.”

He emphasized that the museum board is “one of the reasons I came” to Newport Harbor. A strong board, working as a group is “an attractive thing for a director, not an unattractive thing,” he said. It “balances” the director’s leadership and “gives the staff a clear direction.”

“I know of few nonprofit organizations whose board has as clear a sense of responsibility and the discipline to . . . establish (the museum’s) identity and policy,” he added, citing the board’s support for the concept of a museum focusing on contemporary art.

Botwinick’s own background seems to be in areas other than contemporary art. His master’s degree (from Columbia) is in medieval art, and before he went to the Corcoran in 1982 he worked at large, broadly art-historical institutions.

But, he said Friday, the Corcoran, where he spent five years, has “about an even balance between 19th-Century collections and a commitment to local and (major) contemporary art.” The only exhibits he cited as proof of his contemporary art leanings, though, were shows at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the 1970s on Claes Oldenburg, surrealist photography and Marcel Duchamp--none of which represents a cutting-edge topic--and Corcoran exhibits of Washington artists Sam Gilliam and Rockne Krebs.

Asked about his reputation in the art world for being such an aggressively hands-on director that he interferes with curators and is hard to work with, he acknowledged, “I always have to work hard at keeping my kibitzing under control.” But, he added, “in large historical museums, the director spends a great deal of time making decisions on the allocation of resources. At Brooklyn there were 13 departments and one set of galleries.” In smaller museums, he said, such problems were not as acute.

“I’ve always been a director of high standards.” he said. “I’m driven. Lots of times, it puts you in the position where you ask too much of people. At Brooklyn, there were 35 or 40 curators. There’s no question there were people in there I fought with. At the Corcoran there were one or two I fought with. In all cases, these were honorable fights--professional disagreements. I’ve not ever discharged a curator.”

When he left the museum world, Botwinick became senior vice president of Knoedler-Modarco S.A., the parent company of M. Knoedler & Co. and Hammer Galleries, both in New York. Subsequently he has handled business investments in the art field for the Pritzker family of financiers in Chicago as an employee of Fine Art Group L.P., a Buffalo Grove, Ill., holding company for the Chicago-based Merrill Chase Galleries.

At one point, he told the New York Times that “because museums survive by living off the flesh of their key staff members, they cannibalize themselves . . . (their staffs) give and they give and they give and they give, and some people have to run out of gas.”

“I stand by that quote,” he said Friday. “It’s true about the profession in general . . . (but) I’m invigorated and refreshed. I did not run screaming from the profession because I had enough. I tried a life that has been stimulating.

“I learned an enormous amount, (especially) how to analyze problems in a different way. In the business environment there’s a necessity for clarity. Everything is bottom-line directed. To be able to clearly put things into black and white is not something (that is frequently required) in the nonprofit world.”

Botwinick suggested that his new skills would come in handy, for example, in discussing contracts with an architect.

A native New Yorker, Botwinick replaces Kevin Consey, who left Newport Harbor in November, 1989, to become director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Consey received $85,000 annually in Newport Beach. Botwinick received $98,000 at the Corcoran; his salary here has not been disclosed.

Botwinick is to start working at Newport Harbor immediately, commuting to his home in Chicago until he relocates.