THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 8, 1997 TAG: 9701080342
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 79 lines
A nationally known curator and author was named executive director of the Virginia Beach Center for the Arts on Tuesday.
When Barbara Bloemink begins her job on March 1, though, she will be working for the Virginia Center for Contemporary Art. The center has also changed its name.
Under Bloemink, the center may consider doubling its budget for contemporary art exhibitions, said Jim Spruance, the center's interim director.
With the new name, suggesting an enlarged mission, and the new director, who has curated a show at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art, the center's future is looking bright, Spruance said.
``I'm very proud of us for being able to land her,'' he said. ``It was only because of our reputation and the fact that she had been here before that she considered coming by to talk to us. And then the waltz began, and we dazzled her.
``She said it was the people of Virginia Beach who made her final decision.''
Bloemink, former director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Kansas City, Mo., was on vacation in South America and could not be reached. She succeeds Helen Snow, who left the center in June after four years in the position.
Exhibiting unprecedented openness in its six-month search process, the center brought in community leaders to interview the five finalists for the job, as well as staff and board members.
Bloemink, who is in her early 40s, holds a doctorate from Yale University in international 20th-century art. The subject of her doctoral dissertation, early 20th-century painter Florine Stettheimer, became the focus of Bloemink's 1995 book and the Whitney exhibit.
From 1994 until April, she worked for the Kemper Museum, first as a founding curator and then as director. During her tenure, the museum was opened, became attached to the Kansas City Art Institute, and then broke away.
The controversial break from the school brought headlines in the Kansas City Star, but the management-related disagreements were between the institute and the museum's benefactor, R. Crosby Kemper.
``Barbara was kind of in the middle of all that, so she resigned,'' said Jerome Nerman, a member of the board of trustees for Kemper Museum.
``But she's a very good person - very warm and accessible. She's a very bright lady, and has a good background in art. She has a large acquaintance among the artists as well as the art gallery dealers,'' Nerman said.
``When she left Kansas City, the contemporary art society was very broken up about it. They felt she was a breath of fresh air for Kansas City.
``I think you'll be very happy with her.''
The Kemper is a collecting institution with a $1.2 million annual budget. The Beach center has a $1.27 million annual budget and no permanent collection; it mounts half a dozen temporary exhibitions each year, most of them organized elsewhere and booked for a fee.
The center will spend about $94,000 this year on exhibition-related expenses, such as rental fees, insurance and shipping.
Bloemink has said she hopes the center will spend more money on exhibits, Spruance said. ``Barbara told us she would like to double our exhibitions budget. If we can do that, we can bring in more and better and bigger shows. It would give us new opportunities.''
The type of shows mounted at the center is not expected to change drastically. They'll continue to exhibit ``contemporary art that challenges some of our conventional ideas and thinking about the world today,'' said Spruance, who defines contemporary as within the past two decades.
Bloemink also has been a public art coordinator and consultant for the Raleigh, N.C., arts commission, director of the Hudson River Museum in New York, and director of the 19th-century paintings department for Sotheby's auction house.
She has curated more than 50 exhibitions, among them a national touring show of Michael Lucero's sculpture. The retrospective opens in September at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Barbara Bloemink
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR