Artwork improperly stored in Brodie Hall: The matters behind the neglect

The permanent art collection of SUNY Geneseo is currently stored in three spaces of Brodie Hall: two without proper temperature and humidity conditions, and a third with some irregularly monitored temperature and humidity controls. The lack of controls in two rooms and the loose monitoring of the third is causing irreparable damage to works of art of significant artistic and historic value and varying degrees of monetary value. This issue, mostly brought on by the absence of a Director or Curator of the permanent collection, is one that represents a much larger issue at Geneseo—a lack of care for the arts on behalf of the administration. For more on the context of this story, refer to last week’s article on The Lamron website.

SUNY Distinguished Professor of Art History Lynette M.F. Bosch spoke about her experience as a faculty member adjacent to the now-retrenched studio art department and as a professor whose work could benefit from the accessibility of a permanent collection.

“As far as I know, there is no intention to bring back [studio art], either as a minor or as a major, because I’m not seeing space being delegated to this,” Bosch said. “What I’m seeing is Cynthia [Hawkins, Geneseo’s former Director of Galleries] is not being replaced—so now we don’t even have active interest in doing something about the permanent collection.”

Bosch conveyed that the administration has been notified of the pressing matter of the permanent collection damages, mentioning that Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of History Joseph Cope has stated that the administration is considering hiring an expert to assess the damages and set up a plan of action; however, even this proposal was criticized by Bosch for lack of meaningful action.

“Joe tells me they have been thinking of hiring someone to come and look at it, but that is not at all the same thing as hiring a gallery director whose job it would be to [fix the damages],” she said. “You can bring in an outside person and the outside person is going to tell you exactly what I just told you as I showed you the condition of things—this is a mess.”

The neglect the administration has had for the permanent art collection has been a pattern for years, another critical plot point of this story being the retrenchment of the studio art department by former Geneseo President Christopher Dahl. Back in its day, Bosch recounts the studio art department being a popular asset to Geneseo and its students. She recalled,

“When I came here, there was a big studio department—it was essentially a department that was geared towards arts and crafts, and it had all of the basic things that a studio department would have. There were seven or eight studio people, and there were two art historians, full-time, [as well as] an adjunct [who] came and went for studio and also for art history. So, it was kind of a fluid situation, but it was a very standard thing. There were somewhere always between 75-80 to 100-125 studio majors.”

Bosch went on to explain that the lack of a studio art department or a focus on the arts does not only impact students interested in studying the arts.

“You don’t need to be a studio major to want to take a studio course. You don’t need to be an art history major to be interested in going into a school gallery and seeing works from the permanent collection. Having galleries and gallery openings… are social events,” Bosch said. “Galleries can also be used for fundraising, they can be used as a cultural context, and that would help people want to donate money to the college because they think of it as an active cultural enterprise and institution.”

Bosch continued: “Because we don’t have that…we’ve lost access to some funding, as a result of that. Creativity is meant to be a value that is important for developing careers in anything. One of the most direct ways of being creative and learning how to solve problems is by engaging in studio art because studio art is all about problem-solving. You’re going to do a perspectival drawing—how do you do perspective? How do I do that perspective? How do I look at that carefully enough? How do I translate what I’m seeing into my hand, into something I’m making? This is all problem-solving.”

Next week’s article will continue to unpack the consequences of Geneseo’s lack of continuity in supporting the arts.