The Weatherspoon Art Museum always has something new: new exhibitions, programs, and opportunities for teaching and learning.
This fall, a new director joins the Greensboro art community. Juliette Bianco succeeds Nancy Doll, who retired after leading the museum for 22 years. Bianco comes to UNCG from Dartmouth, where she worked at the Hood Museum of Art, most recently as deputy director.
Campus and community impact through meaningful engagement with diverse works of art is a value that Bianco holds closely. She’s partnered with museums on exhibitions related to civil rights and social justice, including the Brooklyn Museum, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the International Center of Photography.
What’s exciting about leading an art museum?
Art museums are places where we can encounter objects that resonate with us and ways of seeing the world that perhaps we’ve never considered, and also experience a deepening of our existing thoughts or beliefs.
Having a “conversation” with a work of art means truly engaging with another person’s creative expression of their perspective. I want to make that experience accessible to everyone.
How can exhibitions be relevant and accessible to a community?
A museum should be a center for generative and inclusive dialogue and collaboration. Museums are sometimes thought of as places where art is merely deposited and displayed. University museums are all about turning that notion upside down: each object’s impact grows and changes through active and engaged teaching, learning, and creating with people on campus and in the community. We’re all part of the same art-driven ecosystem!
How would you like students and alumni to see the Weatherspoon?
I want students to feel that the Weatherspoon is their museum – that they’ve contributed to making it a place that reflects their values and shares something with them and their peers. I hope alums continue to visit and participate in making the museum exciting and relevant for the next generation of students.
Interview by Susan Kirby-Smith
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