Dennis Szakacs: Tell me a bit about how you got into the art world—your origin story, and how you came to the New Museum.

Ellen Holtzman: Well, I studied art history with the expectation—like everyone else—of being a curator. After receiving a Master’s and entering a difficult job market in the mid-’70s, I came back to New York, my hometown, and made coffee for the Director of the Brooklyn Museum, Michael Botwinick. That was my entrée into the art world.

I was the administrative assistant in the director’s office. I took that position knowing I was overqualified with a Master’s degree, and they knowing that [there were] no promises that I would stay long. I basically learned museum governance and structure in the director’s office of the Brooklyn Museum, and then eventually advanced into another position there and went on to the programs department. I then went to the Queens Museum as the Assistant Director.

I discovered quickly there were avenues in the museum world other than being a curator. After several years—I was at Brooklyn for five years, and at Queens for three—I had the opportunity to answer an ad for a position at the New Museum in the paper.

The irony with this job is that I had met [New Museum Founding Director] Marcia [Tucker] in the late ’70s when I was just looking for my very first job. She interviewed me at the New School in the lobby, for an assistant curatorial position. And she was fabulous. She was my idol already and was very complimentary, but it didn’t work because of timing. That was ten years prior to ultimately interviewing with her again for managing director.

DS: Were you tracking Marcia when she was at the Whitney, or after she started the New Museum?

EH: Well, I came in summer of ’88, and the Museum was already at 583 Broadway. The Museum was about eleven years old at the time, so it was an interesting moment when they were no longer fledgling. They’d been around. They had been in the space for, I think, five years. And if you recall, it was the exhibition space, about 2,000 square feet, and then two subterranean levels.

It was a moment when the Museum, administratively, was struggling with its identity. There were, if I recall, about twenty-five, maybe even thirty staff people. Programmatically, it was still visionary and only going forward and making more strides.

The original vision of the nonhierarchical management—they were still trying to make that work, but it was less and less tenable. There was this dichotomy between being an institutionalized force, a presence, a cultural institution in New York, and still being nimble, flexible, and all of those things. And they were successful, but it was always a struggle. There was never enough space, and there was never enough money, and the scene was very different.

You could say the New Museum was akin to an alternative space at that time. There was Artists Space [New York contemporary art space founded in 1972]. There was Exit Art [New York cultural space from 1982–2012]. There was White Columns [New York gallery for emerging artists founded in 1970]. And programmatically, there were similarities, but the fact that the New Museum strove to be a museum—that was always a question: “Why are you a museum and not just a space?”³

I think that’s one of the things that Marcia held dear to: the idea that it was a museum. Not that it be old and stuffy and everything in storage, but that it be a real, solid institution that’s going to be around for a really long time. It was going to be around for one hundred years like the Met has been, and make that kind of contribution to the cultural scene, but programmatically doing what was new and exciting.⁴

Susan Cahan in Education [1988–96] was absolutely in the foreground with diversity issues.

DS: So you really felt like you were doing something new at the New Museum. What did that feel like coming into work every day?

EH: There was a great sense of pride. The place was ambitious in the most positive sense of the word. Idealistic, scrappy at the time, and it just made you feel like there was so much that art could say to the public and reach beyond what’s traditionally thought of as a museum. And that was very exciting and very rewarding to try to make happen. It was a very intellectual process also—there was a little dichotomy there. We were highly intellectual, but also trying to appeal to people who might feel threatened by a traditional art museum.

DS: And how did people respond to the transition from a collective way of working to one that was more structured?

EH: Well, there were fits and starts. For most of my four years there, things were still done by what Marcia called “consensus management.” We would have people come in and talk to us about what that meant periodically. Really, what that meant for most of the staff is that everything—every decision from personnel to what color the walls were going to be—was done by committee. And on the committee were people from all departments. I think that was one of the motivations for many people to come to work there. But it became harder and harder.

DS: What other projects from that period spring to mind as things that you remember with either great fondness or great chagrin?

EH: Soon after I arrived—you know, ’88 to ’92—we were doing the Window at the New Museum, which in itself was an innovation in museum practice: to have something out there, free, for the public to pass by. Of course, Bill had made a mark by having Silence=Death (1987) in the Window, that ACT UP installation that began as “Let the Record Show…,” in 1987, which was before my time.

So, because of that and several other shows, people looked to that window: What’s the New Museum? What’s going on there? What are they saying? That was the tradition already, as the program started in 1979, two years after the Museum opened.

DS: What was it about the installation that really set people off?

EH: It was in that moment of faux patriotism of “How dare you cross something iconic like the American flag?” It was in the days of—not so much burning the American flag like in the ’60s, but artistically using the American flag in ways that people disapproved of, like the incident at the Art Institute in Chicago.⁵ I think Jasper Johns had done it twenty years before, but this was different. This was more of a political statement. And so, this person or these people were responding to that statement.

Then there was the show, “Have You Attacked America Today?,” a small Window show, in 1989. I think it was by Erika Rothenberg.

DS: That’s right.

EH: And we were in that moment of controversy—not for the sake of controversy, but because there were things to say that some aspects of the world didn’t want to hear. Most of the time, including during Silence=Death, the Window was received with respect.

During the Rothenberg piece, the window was smashed with a garbage can three times, I believe. Certainly twice, but I believe it was three times. That kind of vandalism was new—new to me, and I think it was new to Marcia.

There was a time toward the end of my tenure—and I think it was maintained—where there were conscious efforts in the hiring of staff to make sure that there were multiple perspectives in the form of background, ethnicity, and things like that. It wasn’t just a quota system. It was about having those voices available to enhance the conversation.

DS: The New Museum was able, in some way, to kind of bring uptown downtown and maybe bring a little downtown to uptown. Do you think that was part of Marcia’s charisma and ability to bridge those worlds?

EH: Yes, and I don’t think even she knew why she was so successful. Vera List—who couldn’t have been more different from Marcia except in her artistic passion—and Marcia were dear friends. I don’t know how they met. But yes, absolutely, Marcia was able to bridge that world and any other world—

DS: Or someone like Henry Luce, who came from one of the most distinguished New York families.

EH: Right. And in many ways—Henry Luce is a good example—the Board didn’t always appreciate everything that was on display, but they supported it because of their confidence in Marcia and the staff. But it was Marcia all the way.

DS: The Rothenberg project and the reception to that, Bill Olander’s work with AIDS activism—this was a time when artists in the art world were really engaging with important social issues of the day. And there was some pushback against that, and part of the pushback were controversies over government funding of the arts. You were there when some of that was taking place. Could you talk about your experiences with that and how the New Museum tried to address it in its own way?

EH: It was a moment to be active, to be out there, outside of the museum with other voices, other cultural institutions. I was there during the Mapplethorpe dust-up at the Corcoran, and of course, later there was the Andres Serrano controversy, which Marcia ultimately addressed. This was after I left, but the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia arranged a Serrano retrospective exhibition. Marcia and the staff moved heaven and earth to make sure that it had a New York venue.

DS: When you were working there, did you ever imagine that the Museum would grow to where it is now? And after you left the New Museum—I’d love for you to talk a little bit about that transition and how you remained involved in the life of the Museum as it grew and developed over the years.

EH: Well, to your first question, programmatically, I always knew the New Museum’s impact was substantial and would continue. Physically, in a building like this? Never. I mean, from the three floors below ground in the building at 583 Broadway without sunlight, I never—

DS: From the basement to the Sky Room!

EH: I never, ever envisioned a freestanding beautiful building. I think of the word museum and without the context of collection and storage and all that stuff, if you think of a museum as a building, this place is now a museum. It’s solid, it’s here, and it’s an anchor in the neighborhood.

And the elaborate nature of the exhibitions, the physical feats you pull off. I wanted to ask you about the boat [Chris Burden’s Ghost Ship (2005)]—the things that you were able to do here, which I know cost money—it’s amazing that those things can be done now on a regular basis.