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N.C. Art Center's state makeover

Art in America, Feb, 2008 by Stephanie Cash

Due to a fiscal crisis precipitated by maintenance and repair costs, the board of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in WinstonSalem--for some 50 years known as an "artist-friendly" independent venue that showed cutting-edge work by regional and international artists--agreed to a state takeover last April. In mid-December, the center officially became an "operating entity" of the North Carolina Museum of Art, under the aegis of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. Also in mid-December, the head of the museum, Lawrence a. Wheeler, hired Mark Leach as SECCA's new director. Leach was formerly founding director and chief curator at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte.

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The restructuring resulted in the loss of most of the SECCA staff. SECCA director Vicki Kopf retired last summer, and curator David Brown resigned in July to become deputy director at the Art Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke, which is scheduled to open its striking new $66-million, Randall Stout-designed facility in November. Many of the remaining staff members, whose positions are now governed by the state, resigned or were terminated. Previously, SECCA employed six full-time and 10 part-time staff, though the full-time number had dwindled from 13 over the past four years as various positions--chief curator, executive director, curator of education, associate curator/gallery manager and others--were eliminated or left unfilled.

Among the urgent repairs to SECCA's building, which contains 11,000 square feet of gallery space with soaring ceilings, are a roof repair and a climatecontrol upgrade. Leach faces the task of raising funds for SECCA's maintenance, estimated to be $1.4 to $10 million over the next few years. Under the new arrangement, the state will provide a third of the center's budget (including salaries for six positions) and will make funds available for repairs. Leach says he intends to add more staff as the program grows. Additionally, the former board has been reconstituted and will be appointing new members.

Another of Leach's priorities will be to hire a curator to implement a program of contemporary art, craft and design. With a building in need of repair, few exhibitions in the pipeline (recent shows have featured works from the North Carolina Museum of Art) and a staff in flux, it remains to be seen what direction SECCA will take as Leach tranforms the institution. One indicator might be the venues he hopes to partner with: the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum and Mass MoCA.

N.C. Art Center's state makeover

Art in America, Feb, 2008 by Stephanie Cash

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