MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE
A 35 Year Story...
Wendell Walker first worked for what was then American Museum of the Moving Image in 1991. He designed and managed the installation of the Museum's first temporary exhibition, "Shigeko Kubota, Video Sculpture," and went on to design several exhibitions for the Museum as a contracted consultant throughout the 90s. He joined the museum's staff as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Design in 2001. For the next 20 years, walker would oversee the design and production of all the Museum's exhibitions, along with managing the Museum's identity.
The early days of exhibition work focused on the core exhibition, Behind the Screen, and managing the museum's graphic design and production was a major focus. Walker managed the design and placement of signage throughout the building. Walker also oversaw custom designed products to be sold in the Museum's store—and the way the products were displayed in the store, alongside management of all the Museum's letterhead, business cards and other such printed materials. Very soon after joining the Museum's staff, building operations was added in phases to Walker's portfolio. This included building operations (general maintenance and mechanical engineers), security, and visitor service operations. Walker approved and oversaw all special events, including location TV and film shoots—often in the Museum's lobby and other public areas. He worked with various city agencies on the Museum's behalf, and worked with NYC Board of Elections on terms for the Museum serving as an early voting site. Walker retired from his position as Deputy Director for Operation, Exhibitions, and Design in 2021.
I have always seen the connection between exhibition design and building operations as very important. In my days doing independent design work, I quickly learned that what the building infrastructure, and the staff of a particular museum, can support determines a lot about the exhibition design standards for that facility. Alongside daily operations and building management, what sort of education program the Museum has, and how the gallery will be used are all factors in designing layouts that will facilitate proper crowd management. My early days at American Museum of the Moving Image intrigued me because their galleries presented all the challenges up front. Moving Image always had a very active school group visitation program combined with many interactive exhibits, often with complicated topics associated. This always presented challenges, and I always loved tackling them, and loved being able to hire the right people to tackle them as well.
I served as a contract based exhibition designer to the Museum for several projects in the 90s. My first project for the Museum was an exhibition of the video sculpture of Shigeko Kubota. The project involved transforming raw, unused space in the Museum into a gallery environment, and it also involved working closely with Shigeko, and her husband Nam June Paik, on the layout details and logistics. Installing works with video content was always a major challenge back in those days, with laser discs as the state of art format.
The exhibition that I'm most proud of from that era was the original, physical exhibition of "The Living Room Candidate: A History of Presidential Campaign Commercials" that I designed in 1992 (and it later became an online exhibition...another story...). I worked with a fellow designer and colorist Cindy Sirko on the overall design. We were in the same, raw space I had used for the Kubota exhibition—and it was still raw and open. We used banners and lighting along with some foam sofas that we acquired to create small seating areas for each election year, with a graphic panel that I designed explaining the content alongside a large monitor where the commercials were shown. That exhibition became the start of an update every 4 years, with each presidential election, and it eventually became an online exhibition. It's probably my oldest project that is still ongoing, and you can check it out here: https://livingroomcandidate.org.
I did several other exhibition design projects for the Museum, and toward the end of the 90s, I was hired by the Museum to do some updates to their core exhibition. It started as a 6 month project, but it kept growing and getting extended. It finally resulted in the director offering me a position as deputy director for exhibitions. I was on staff at MoMA-PS1 at that time, and it was a hard decision to leave... but money talked, along with the new responsibilities of being a Deputy Director.
The other very special connection I have to Museum of the Moving Image is the role I played in the overall re-design and expansion that happen over a 10 year period. Alongside the new responsibilities the job presented, the expansion was the primary lure for me joining the staff full time in 2001. The horrors of 911 resulted in a significant delay in starting the process, which began formally with a national search for an architect. I played a primary role in managing the process under the leadership of the Museum's director Rochelle Slovin, and was a voting member of the selection committee. We hired Leeser Architecture, and it was that start of a very long and complicated process. We also hired Sciame Construction to manage the project, and I worked closely with them on the daily operations—keeping the museum open through most of the 5 year construction process. Of course, at the end of that process I had several new and several renovated gallery spaces to fill and open all at once, and it was a fantastic process that in the end felt like magic wands had been waved. I always love how the beauty at the end makes one recontextualize the dramas that got you there!!! (WW)
PAST Momi PROJECT: Shigeko kobota video sculpture
PAST Momi PROJECT: The jim henson exhibition
PAST Momi PROJECT: ENVISIONING 2001
PAST MOMI PROJECT: MATTHEW WEINER'S MAD MEN
PAST MOMI PROJECT: From MR. CHIPS TO SCARFACE
PAST MOMI PROJECT: NERO SICILIA
PAST MOMI PROJECT: Room H.264
