As much as she appreciates recognition, Sherri Geldin’s greatest professional reward has been watching the Wexner Center for the Arts become a unique and highly influential artistic institution.
In September, Geldin celebrated her 20th anniversary as the center’s director.
Geldin came to the Wexner Center from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, where she served as associate director. After being recruited for the job, she was impressed by the center’s potential and its commitment to emerging and established artists, as well as its research and innovation.
“I was really intrigued by how truly cross-disciplinary the center was,” she says. “I’m not sure anyone really had a full idea of what this place could become … and how it could realize its potential.”
The focus on film and performing arts – going beyond just visual arts – was one way in which the center differentiated itself from its contemporaries, and Geldin has worked hard to maintain and expand that focus.
Laurie Anderson, Twyla Tharp, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Elevator Repair Service, Young Jean Lee, Bebe Miller and the Kronos Quartet are among the performers whose shows most stand out in Geldin’s memory. Their 1990s shows at the Wexner Center even planted the seeds of a collaboration between Anderson and Kronos Quartet, the final product of which was just completed last year.
Richard Linklater, Gus van Sant, Guy Maddin and Christine Vachon are among the filmmakers who have come to the Wexner Center to discuss their films. Other, nascent filmmakers whose careers have gotten a boost from the center include Todd Haynes, Allison Anders, Sadie Benning and Sam Green, Geldin says.
The center excels in artistic exhibitions, too, and Geldin has been impressed by many of them over the years.
The fall 1995 Roy Lichtenstein exhibit particularly stands out in her mind, because it marked a major collaboration with the Buckeye football program – several of his works were replicated on the scoreboard at Ohio Stadium to promote the show. Other highlights have included a major Andy Warhol exhibition that originally wasn’t going to be displayed anywhere in the U.S. and the current multi-disciplinary, multi-year Via Brasil project.
A benchmarking study a few years ago revealed to Geldin another major facet of the center’s evolution: its substantial recognition and mindshare across the national and international arts communities, which eclipses that of some larger institutions with greater resources. She also takes pride in the center’s local influence; it’s led institutions to more closely embrace contemporary art and creative talent, and its educational endeavors have impacted area teens and other demographic groups.
“I like to think that the Wexner Center was something of an exemplar to the city of Columbus,” Geldin says.
On May 21, Geldin will receive an award in Arts Administration at the Governor’s Awards for the Arts in Ohio. And in February, in recognition of Geldin’s 20 years as director, the center created the Sherri Geldin Innovation Fund to support special research projects and unique initiatives.
Though the awards are gratifying, Geldin says, she gives a great deal of the credit to the team at the center.
With her own anniversary out of the way, Geldin is looking forward to another major milestone: the Wexner Center’s 25th anniversary. Anniversary programming will begin in the fall and span the entire 2014-15 season.
Garth Bishop is editor of CityScene Magazine. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
