by Paula M. Wagoner

 

AS THE BAKER MUSEUM at Artis–Naples enters its third decade with a newly expanded and remodeled facility, Courtney McNeil continues to engage the public with compelling exhibitions and programming. I wanted to talk with her about her team, the important relationship with Jay & Patty Baker, and an environmental artist who will compel us to reclaim the earth. 

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Tell me about starting as the new director right at the cusp of the pandemic. 

  

COURTNEY McNEIL: I was announced as the new director in 2020, but didn’t physically come onboard until January 2021. This has been an incredibly challenging and trying time. Professionally, it’s been difficult to know how to continuously adapt and to know what decisions must be made for the safety of our community and our workers, and how to salvage the essential function of a museum and continue to present meaningful art exhibitions. There is no better set of people to be weathering such a crisis with than creative museum professionals. All my team’s creativity came to bear in the planning that had to be done, in the pivoting and the repositioning that were necessary in order to realize the wonderful second half of the season that I got to enjoy here in Naples and the plans for this current season as well.

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Can you briefly discuss some of the longer exhibitions on display?

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‘Subject Matters: Selections from the Permanent Collection’ was already on view when I started, and I made the decision to extend it until March so folks would have an opportunity to explore. However, attendance during Covid was low. 

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What brought about the exhibition, ‘Baseball Heroes’? Was this being developed for some time? 

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This exhibition of the baseball heroes Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Derek Jeter had been in the works before the pandemic. When I was hired, I knew this show needed to happen and I also knew that no real planning had been able to take place. The analysis and examination of the objects to determine what would be logistically necessary to mount them for display in the gallery could not happen in person because these items were in a private residence. So, planning had to be put on hold. We started working on it back in the spring. We contracted an amazing exhibition design team who works for museums all over the country. Unlike a traditional art exhibition, where beautiful art is hung on the wall, these incredible baseball objects needed additional context and more of an elaborate display. We had a fantastic guest curator, Nick Clark, and he like me is a huge museum nerd and baseball fan. He did the research and the writing for items you see in the gallery. We had all the casework for the exhibition like the plexiglass bonnets that protect all the objects, the pedestals, and the display shelves custom fabricated. Our hope was that even people who didn’t love baseball would enjoy this exhibition.

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What was the installation process like for such a dynamic exhibition of baseball gloves, letters, contracts, photos, video, and even passports of Joe Namath and Marylin Monroe?

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It was a huge effort to say the least. A group of four or five graphic installers were in the galleries for about a week just putting up all the large-scale photographic reproductions that populate that exhibition. It was an incredibly complicated show logistically, but what was easy was working with the fantastic collectors like Jay & Patty Baker. They made the collection in their home available to my team for the many days it took to examine all the objects to determine the best mounting mechanism, record all notes and details of the condition and pack them up safely for transport to the museum. They were a true joy to work with. Mr. Baker carries knowledge of every single one of the objects in his baseball collection in his head. We were able to include just a tiny fraction of what he knows in the interpretation that you see in the gallery to be able to weave together a story about the five players who are the subject of the exhibition.

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Regarding the Bakers... I love their history together, especially her experience in the art world. 

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There is a 17-minute video that contains an interview with both Bakers where they talk about collecting, what started them in collecting, what drives them and their overall collecting philosophy. I want every visitor to the museum to feel like they’ve had a chat with the Bakers. They have such an infectious zest for life — a wonderful energy, a real passion — and I wanted visitors to the exhibition to experience that. 

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Why do you think the ‘Love in All Forms’ collection is an important exhibit?

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This exhibit really helps to round out the full picture of who Patty & Jay Baker are. What you see in that exhibition is that zest for life. Both collect art that both of them like. Patty says, ‘They both have to like it or it does not find a home with them.’ Beyond that there are no hard and fast rules. So, what you have in this collection is a joyful riot of color, and energy, and life in a way that defies traditional art historical narratives and chronologies. We echoed that philosophy in the installation. You have a Claude Monet painting adjacent to a Jeff Koons sculpture. This is not a pairing that you see very often, and it was such a joy to be able to create some of these pairings in our galleries here that echoed the philosophy of the collectors who acquired these works. 

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Is there anything new you would like to share about the three artists — Gonzolo Fuenmayor, Akiko Kotani, and Noelle Mason — who are the focus of the ‘Florida Contemporary’ exhibit?

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This exhibit was curated by Dr. Rangsook Yoon, who had been in conversations with these artists pre-pandemic. Although it was frustrating to have a project delayed because of the pandemic, it gave us an opportunity to observe these artists and their evolution, so some of the work you see in the galleries is work that was created during the pandemic. For example, Gonzolo Fuenmayor drawings are usually these massive epically scaled charcoal drawings on these huge sheets of paper, but because he couldn’t access his studio during the lockdown, he was working in smaller size paper and creating smaller drawings that he never would have tried otherwise. So, those fantastic smaller drawings created during the pandemic are alongside the large oversize work he is best known for. I think that artistic evolution and the opportunity to reflect on how the pandemic influenced artists’ careers and artistic choices is an interesting component of the ‘Florida Contemporary’ exhibit this year. 

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Pam Longobardi is a plasticist which sounds like a cool, post-modern term for using art and recovered plastic. Why do you feel that this installation is important?

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I curated this exhibition and had the great fortune to first get acquainted with Pam’s work when I was in Georgia. She is an Atlanta artist and I thought that her work and her interest in the environment was such a natural fit for our community here in Naples, because of the truly spectacular natural environment. When you are looking at the artwork that Pam Longobardi creates, you are only seeing a tiny fraction of her artistic practice. That’s because her work is not just about the objects she makes, but the process by which the plastic objects that comprise her work are collected and the way she works with communities to inspire beach cleanups, shedding light on the affect of plastic and consumption on the natural environment. It is important for art museums to be a place where communities can gather together to talk about and to think about the issues that face us as a society today. Certainly, humankind’s effect on the natural environment is one of those issues that cannot be ignored. 

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I love that this exhibition is partnering with the Naples Conservancy. Events that happened already include the community day, the beach cleanup and ahead in January, Pam is hosting a talk at The Baker Museum. 

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For conversations like this to happen and to get the attention that they deserve, partnerships with other organizations in the community are essential. It was a joy to be introduced to the folks at the Conservancy through this project and to hear their early and enthusiastic support for the exhibition and all the components that it entails. 

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In November, they had two experts from their staff speak on a panel along with Pam Longobardi looking at both scientific and artistic perspectives on the impact of plastics on the environment. After the panel was over, Pam went down to the front lawn outside of the museum and she and two of her assistants created a temporary site-specific installation using plastics that she had culled in a beach cleanup at Clam Pass Beach. Pam has been down to visit and meet with my team several times and every time she comes to Naples she visits and cleans beaches. We used these found plastic objects from Naples beaches along with a few objects that Pam brought from other beaches to create a beautiful installation in the shape of a compass to sort of question what direction we are heading and what our future holds. It was a community-based installation, so the folks who were at the discussion panel were taking the plastic pieces and helping her team arrange them into a compass. It was very hands-on. People were talking about what each object was, where it came from, and these wonderful informal engaged conversations were taking place.  •

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The Baker Museum is located at Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd. in Naples. The museum is open Tuesday-Saturday 10am-4pm & Sunday 12-4pm. For information, call 597-1900.