When Dr. Julia Marciari-Alexander was in the sixth grade, she and her family traveled to Europe. After spending time in London and Paris, they ended up in Rome, attending New Year’s Day mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.
Having grown up just outside of Los Angeles, Marciari-Alexander recalls being in awe of the timeless works of art and liturgical elements of the procession. She even remembers her father, who was an ordained Presbyterian minister, “taking a picture of Pope John Paul II giving a blessing just as the light was coming in through the windows.”
Looking back, Marciari-Alexander cites that New Year’s Day mass as a formative arts-related experience. “It made me think about the way we create spaces through art, artifacts and ceremonies,” she told me. “It’s been part of our nature from the beginning of time, and I realized the importance of how the art of the past drives how we interact with our world in our present moment.”
Marciari-Alexander has carried this experience with her throughout her distinguished career and in her current role as executive director and CEO of Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Earlier this month, New York City’s Samuel H. Kress Foundation, a funder advancing the history, conservation and appreciation of European art, architecture and archaeology, announced Marciari-Alexander as its next president. She’ll officially assume her duties this fall.
I recently caught up with Marciari-Alexander to discuss her career trajectory, how the Walters Art Museum has reckoned with its namesake, William Thompson Walters, who was a Confederate sympathizer, and her imminent move to the Big Apple. Here are excerpts from our conversation, which have been edited for clarity and length.
How did you get involved in the art world?
I grew up in Claremont, which is a college town with two art museums, one at Scripps College and one that was right across the street from my house, at Pomona College, so I used to go to events all the time.
I became an art history student and was interested in museum education, so I got in touch with the director of the museum at Pomona, which is now called the Benton Museum of Art. She gave me my first job at an art museum as an intern. I remember I wrote the labels for an Ernst Barlach exhibition. I decided to go into curatorial work rather than the education piece, so early in my career, my first mentors were art museum directors.
What advice would you give your 20-year-old self?
I’d say to listen more carefully to the people who are in their 50s. It’s not just the people in their 60s, 70s and 80s who have lived experiences. In order to change the world, you need to know the world that you’re changing, and change has to happen deeply and incrementally; otherwise, you’re just changing the decorations in the house. The people who were in their 50s when I was in my 20s were the people who had been working in the civil rights movement. I wish I had sat them down and said, “Tell me about it.”
That’s an incisive distinction. When you’re in your 20s, you don’t consider the 50s to be your elders, as it were. It’s more like they’re your cool aunt or uncle.
That’s right. Or your annoying parents.
Let the record show I did not say that.
Yeah, well, I have 20-year-old twins [Laughs].
You joined Walters in 2013. How has your tenure prepared you for your role at Kress?
My philosophy about the need for change and the pace of change has been shaped by decades-plus at the Walters. Baltimore is a city where everything is all out in the front, and as is the case with many museums, there’s a tendency for people to view a museum as irrelevant. Why should I care about pictures of naked women or pharaohs or Jesus? Why is that relevant to me?
It was my responsibility to put the people at the center of the experience so that you see the people in the objects in our collection and then use those objects to help us understand who we are. For example, we have one of the most important collections of medieval stained glass in America. We displayed work by Kehinde Wiley, not because it’s a Kehinde Wiley, but because it’s work that is in direct dialogue with these objects. It helps us see people in a way that we wouldn’t normally see them.
You mentioned change can happen “deeply and incrementally.” Can you elaborate?
Change comes from creating spaces in which we can have challenging conversations about things that occurred in the past to understand the legacy of those things on us and our time, and then to help think about how to do it differently. And in the course of trying to do that, you have the potential to shut down the dialogue by making people feel vulnerable or guilty. It takes a lot of prep time and trust-building. It’s building credibility by doing what you say you’re going to do.
To your point, in 2021, Walter Arts Museum revealed that its benefactors, William Walters and his son Henry Walters, had ties to the Confederacy. Can you walk me through how you approached this issue?
We’ve been working on this for about seven years, well before the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent reckoning with history, so we were able to put out factual historical information on our website and in our lobby. When the news broke that we were doing this, everyone within the museum was on the same page. I’m sure it made some people mad or wanted us to move faster, but most of the people we heard from, including the Walters family, said, “Thank you.”
But the work is ongoing. There is still more to be done. This isn’t the kind of thing you can do in a day. If you do it in a day, people will say, “Yeah, great,” but it’s going to be forgotten.
What excites you the most about your new role at Kress?
There are very few foundations that encourage institutions to think about the past, particularly European Judeo-Christian past, in ways that can reshape our present and future. People are much more willing to say, “Oh, these Christian works of art are uninteresting,” but Christianity is one of the most prevalent forces in America today.
We have these objects that were the vehicles to, at best, celebrate, and at worst, proselytize, and not being willing to engage in how we got where we are is dangerous. There’s so much parochialism in America where we only talk to the people we like. We don’t like the uncomfortableness of sitting at a table with people whose views you abhor. But if you don’t do that, you’re in your little echo chamber. It’s kind of a numbing medication as opposed to a useful way of thinking about your humanity.
I find it interesting that Kress focuses on European art dating back to the Renaissance; meanwhile, one of the recurring themes throughout the history of American art is this idea of breaking free from European forms. There’s always been a tension there.
Absolutely, and I would argue that the very fact that we in the United States, in our drive to create a unique experience, is in conversation with the voice you’re trying to repudiate. This notion that we’re going to do something completely new is denying what is a fundamental human characteristic, the art of creativity.
Take the idea of how Protestantism has been mapped onto our story as Americans. The influence is there, of course, but it’s always been built out of a conversation against Catholicism. I grew up in a Protestant household, and when I was in Rome with my family for that New Year’s Eve mass, I was experiencing everything that John Calvin hated.
I heard Calvin could be the life of the party.
He was a fun man.
I assume you’ll be moving to New York?
Yep. I’m excited to access the cultural institutions, my friend network in the city and live in a place, frankly, that I’ve always been afraid of living. I grew up in Southern California. I lived in New Haven, Connecticut. I lived abroad for a long time. I can handle big European cities. I love Baltimore and the lifestyle that it has provided my children. But when people say, “What are you most afraid of?” It’s New York. [Laughs].
Any parting thoughts?
Having previously lived in San Diego, I feel like I was able to provide a non-Baltimore perspective at the Walters, and I’m looking forward to bringing a different perspective to Kress, which has traditionally been a very Northeast-focused organization. This is a very difficult moment for the field, and to be able to help shape it is a huge privilege.
