MFA Director Terjanian Makes Big Impression at Tekeyan Talk

Terjanian spoke about the museum’s $13-million deficit, another dreaded legacy of Covid and its subsequent lockdown. The financial gap is widening, he said, as expenses are rising faster than revenues. As a result, he explained the museum is taking a creative approach in tackling the task of closing that gap.

“We’ve given ourselves three years to go back to balancing the budget. It is going to require a lot of disciple and ingenuity,” he said. They are also looking at philanthropy and increased means of bringing in revenue, rather than cost-cutting.

“It’s going to be a long haul but we are going to get there,” Terjanian said, keeping “to our mission and how we create even more value, what the museum is about.”

He stressed the importance of making connections with the community and stressing that the message of the museum and what it offers in terms of mental healing.

He defined at various times what exactly the museum means and why it is of vital importance, often stressing access.

“It’s not just a repository of art,” he said, but a meeting place where people can come together.

AI and Art

Arkun asked about AI and its possible effects — negative or positive — on art.

Terjanian said the museum is “not turning our back on technology,” he said. “We will not be able to compete successfully with the metaverse,” which allows a viewer to literally go inside a painting.

He added, “In my view you do not come to the museum to see these images. You come to be in the presence of the originals, to have an emotional response and not just an understanding. And who you are seeing the object with makes a difference. I believe in the human touch so we need a combination of spectacular experiential displays but the presence of a fellow human being who will surpass the apps. I guarantee it.”

Technology, he said, has its rightful place.

One creative way it has been used is teaming up with Kayem Foods to digitally put in hotdogs into art depicting figures from the American Revolutionary War era.

This campaign, he said, was a “way to open up to museum. It is not a bad thing for a museum to be present in unexpected places.”

Funding

Terjanian said the museum does not receive much federal funding; in fact, he said, federal funds account for 1 percent of the museum’s annual budget. He further expanded that the MFA had turned down a couple of federal grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

One advantage in this course of action is independence, especially in the current hyper-conservative political atmosphere.

“If we are self-funded. Are we really going to turn over the review of our interpretations, selection of the objects, the exhibition programs to somebody else? We have fought long and hard to be where we are with the support of the community. It seems absurd to compromise that when we are not clear where the expectations might be if we were to seek federal funding,” he said diplomatically. “What is at stake is that a museum is a storyteller. And we are no longer credible if we no longer control the narrative.”

The comment received applause.

A Day in the Life

Before landing at the MFA, he was the Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Curator in Charge of The Met’s Department of Arms and Armor. (He is now a Curator Emeritus there). ,Before that, he held the dual role of J. J. Medveckis Associate Curator of Arms and Armor and acting head of the Department of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture before 1700 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

He was asked about the day-to-day nature of the job and he replied that the tasks are so large and so many, that each day looks different from the others. He said in addition to his fiduciary responsibly, he is focusing on bringing in new audiences.

Using a nautical metaphor, he showed glimpses of his thought process.

“My job is not so much to have all the answers but to leverage the expertise we have on our board,” as well as members on the staff, he said. “Setting a direction is absolutely essential because we live in a world full of uncertainty and we cannot have just plans. We need to have a destination. We will navigate the troubled waters and get there.”

Again and again he stresses the human element. Terjanian announced that the museum has just gotten a major donation to provide the staff professional development, “enabling everyone to be at their very best at their game.”

He also discussed some of the innovative ways the museum is trying to bring in more people, including concerts with antique instruments usually on display only.

“I am always looking for how else we can multiply the reasons to come to the museum,” he said. “Not just the visual experience, but something richer. The museum is a place to make connections.”

Added Terjanian, “I believe in the theatrics. … Art museums should be first and foremost about enjoyment and then comes the learning. There is some virtue in that.”

“We can create a better rhythm in the way you explore the museum,” he said. “Another way is more anthropological exploration of the museum. One challenge is how do you represent everyone … in the museum. That would mean acquiring a lot of works to better represent historically marginalized artists and communities.”

“There is a real opportunity in my view for inviting a navigation of museum looking at materials and techniques,” he added.

Returning Works of Art

The MFA recently returned two jars made by a slave, David Drake, in 1857 in South Carolina.

“We are the first and so far only museum in the US to have done so [returning a work of art to descendants of slaves],” he said. “We followed the analysis that the maker of this work, working in the conditions of enslavement, could not have a say in keeping the works, in profiting from their sale, therefore it is a form of coercion. The logical conclusion was to work with the descents” of the artist, he added.

Arkun asked if the MFA’s collection can afford to return every work of art with a dubious provenance.

“The answer is no, we cannot return everything,” Terjanian said, adding “I don’t believe we can be credible or inspiring if we are transactional and only self-serving and therefore it is essential that we bite the bullet and accept the consequences of being ethical.”

Terjanian praised the current curators and spoke at length about his vision not only for the MFA, but in how museums are currently perceived as well has how they will function in the future in society.

“The real ambition is even beyond the MFA is to make sure that museums have a bright future and that art museums are providing a service that is valued,” he said.

Terjanian spoke with charm and humor about his long journey from his native Strasbourg to Boston. He asked the audience if they knew at 16 what they wanted to do in the future. He said education in France was affordable and good. He went to law school as well as business school, though he realized he did not want to work in either field. He did add, however, that what he learned in those schools is still helping him in his profession now.

“In France, I was 24 when I finished all these degrees,” he said, noting that he had aged out of a museum school that then Minister of Culture Jack Lang had created. As he explained, anyone who wants to work at a museum in France would have to finish the program, after which they would be sent to museums based on their ranking rather than their interest. Since at that time the European Union had not in essence created one European market, he could not work in other nations on the continent.

Dejected, after finishing his military service, he went to visit a friend studying at New York University. There, he visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and inquired about working there. Serendipitously, someone there told him that while there were no positions available at the Met, the Philadelphia Museum of Art was looking for an arms and armaments curator, which happened to be his specialty.

He praised the US for giving him the opportunity to choose a new path.

Armenian Heritage

Terjanian grew up in Strasbourg, where there are few Armenians and therefore his last name stood out. His parents, including his Armenian father, did not tell him much about his background.

“He [the older Terjanian] was born in Paris. I have a photograph of him in the arms of a GI in 1944,” he said. His father was born to an Alsatian mother and a father who came from Kayseri (Caesaria or Gesaria) and was one of the very few survivors in his family” as a result of the Armenian Genocide.

When his grandfather arrived in France at age 12, he decided to assimilate into the French culture.

The only element in the lives of his father and grandfather which had roots in the Armenian tradition was the family business: selling carpets. It was after coming to the US that Terjanian really started discovering the Armenian community, he said.

“It’s been a slow discovery,” adding that so much that shapes him personally and professionally, has roots in his heritage. “I’m very interested in ebb and flow, resilience, displacement and how art and cultural artifacts are reaffirming the existence and genius of people,” he said. “Art,” he said, “is more than the work of a single creator. It tells you a lot about the place it was made and for whom it was made and the relationships.”

And continuing with the Armenian theme, Terjanian said that in addition to the Gorky works, the museum has a “beautiful, beautiful” 18^th-century Armenian altar curtain in storage, measuring six meters in width.

“We don’t even have the space to examine it,” he said, much less display it.

In addition there are objects from Urartu in the Near East department and photographs from Canadian-Armenian legend Yusuf Karsh.

At the event Terjanian announced that, the museum just recently received a piece from Martin Barooshian, the Boston-based abstract artist. What makes his work even more special, Terjanian said, is that Barooshian attended the MFA’s Museum School.

This is not the first Barooshian piece at the museum.

Arkun asked if the MFA and Terjanian had any interest to work with groups in the Armenian community.

“I would like to spend time with the Armenian community before we decide what direction it should take,” he replied. “Traditionally museums were ivory towers. They had very highly educated people who claimed superior knowledge and unique command of certain subjects. What we have learned over time is that we all are richer by bringing to the table other voices  than our own.”

He added that he recently got a “magnificent tour” at the Armenian Museum of America and was “so impressed with the passion and energy” of the museum and its current and extremely successful Gorky exhibit. Terjanian said slowly he is meeting with various community organizations and he would like to know how he can help them.

Said Arkun after this comment got applause, “We are already helping connect you with the community.”

The evening ended with a lengthy question-and-answer period, followed by a light reception, during which Terjanian was happily surrounded by fans.