New MSU Broad Museum director has plans beyond the pandemic

In a normal world, Monica Ramirez-Montagut, the new director of MSU’s Broad Art Museum, would be all over the place by now, spreading the news about the latest art at the Broad and exhibits to come.

“I’m a very social person, so isolation at home is difficult for me,” she said.

Since Ramirez-Montagut became the museum’s third director in July, she has supervised a careful reopening of the Broad after six months of closed doors, reached out to dozens of MSU staffers and community members to develop future programs and exhibits, and begun to plan major changes to the museum for its 10th anniversary in 2022.

She’s also shepherding the Broad’s curators as they mount a major new exhibition on American car culture, “InterStates of Mind,” opening Nov. 7. The exhibit will mix art and history, including local automotive lore, in a way that’s new to the Broad.

But in a pandemic year, nothing is simple. Even taking social distancing into account, the Broad is only getting about half as many visitors as it can safely handle. That puts the staff in a bind.

“We are thinking of aggressively publicizing for people to come, but on the other hand, we don’t want to have to say, ‘We’ve met our numbers so come another day,’” Ramirez-Montagut said. “But we are 100 percent sure that we are a safe environment.”

It’s been hard for the director herself to go to the museum. She moved to East Lansing at the beginning of August, but she had to isolate herself for two weeks off the bat, having come from New Orleans, a coronavirus hot spot. When her father died in September, she made two trips to Mexico City, and had to quarantine again.

Now she and her mom, who came along with her from Mexico City, are finally venturing out and surveying the local scene.

Her first impression, especially after living in the complex metropolis of Mexico City, is that East Lansing is an “easy-going, comfortable place, a city where everything more or less functions, things are not so complicated and people are super-nice.”

Big receptions and meet-and-greets are not possible, but that hasn’t stopped Ramirez-Montagut from taking the pulse of the community at every opportunity. Last week, while having blood drawn for a routine medical procedure, she met a nurse who also hails from Mexico.

“As we want to diversify the audience, this is the audience I want to bring in to the museum, a Latino woman with a Mexican family,” Ramirez-Montagut said.

The nurse had seen the Broad under construction several years ago but had never gone inside. While poking for blood, she was treated to a one-on-one pitch from the museum’s new director.

“We obviously have a lot of outreach to do, especially to the communities we want to serve,” Ramirez-Montagut said. “I want to bring in a broader audience and let people know it’s free and they’re welcome.” (The nurse didn’t know the museum was free.) “You don’t have to stay for three hours, like an opera.”

Ramirez-Montagut and the Broad’s curators hope the Nov. 7 exhibit on cars and car culture will be catnip for Lansing-area visitors and establish a new framework for exhibits at the Broad.

The art, including fantastic sculptures by Chakaia Booker made out of automobile tires and pieces from the Broad’s permanent collection, will be supplemented by maps, videos and other displays that delve into the drastic impact the automobile has had on American life, for better and for worse.

“Car culture impacted our communities by connecting some communities and disconnecting others,” Ramirez-Montagut said. “This is the first time we’re doing a combination of art and historical information and local relevance, what local experts and MSU experts say.”

The exhibit will include photographs, maps and other documents from the Historical Society of Greater Lansing’s recent research into the displacement of the city’s black neighborhoods by I-496.

Ramirez-Montagut wants a “local corner” to be a fixture at every Broad exhibit in the future.

“We will explain why we are looking at this exhibition, in East Lansing and mid-Michigan,” she said.

In the run-up to the Broad’s 10th anniversary in 2022, Ramirez-Montagut is planning on making some significant changes to the museum, which she is keeping under wraps for now.

One goal is to make the historical Kresge Art Museum collection and the Broad’s permanent collection more visible to the public and more accessible to secondary and elementary school teachers and students, as well as the MSU community.

Laying the groundwork for 2022 is a luxury made possible by the pandemic slowdown.

“It’s a silver lining that we are doing things we never had time for, that were on the back burner,” Ramirez-Montagut said. “We’re giving more thought to what we’ll do for the anniversary and how we can showcase the collection.”

COVID restrictions have also focused the staff’s attention on guiding the visitor through the museum in a more structured, purposeful way, with pathways and signs, rather than leaving them to a “free form” experience.

As a trained architect, and a specialist in the work of MSU Broad architect Zaha Hadid, Ramirez-Montagut is also working on programs and materials that will educate the public more fully on the architectural gem in their midst.

“It’s up to us to unpack the building, do a better job explaining it,” she said. “That’s what Picasso exhibitions do. Every exhibition tells you things you didn’t know.”

She plans to work with late Zaha Hadid’s firm to develop programs that reveal the design principles and comprehensive thought behind the building’s daunting angles and edges.

“I’d like to do a free coloring book on the geometry and forms of the building,” she said. “Start ‘em young.”