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| Visions & Revisions |
Avant Vanguard
05/01/2007
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Barbara Lee calls the arts her passion and politics her
mission. She contributes to both through a family foundation she created in 1999
following her divorce from private equity financier Thomas Lee in 1996. Her $5
million pledge launched a campaign to build a new home for the Institute of
Contemporary Art in Boston (ICA)—the city’s first new museum in nearly a
century. The much-lauded space opened last December. Lee also devotes herself to
advancing women in politics. She organizes women’s rallies, hosts fundraisers
and supports research to help women prepare for office, including the nation’s
highest one. Lee spoke with staff writer Elizabeth Harris about the importance
of contemporary art and whether Hillary Clinton is really on her speed dial.
In a city with cultural riches such as the Museum of Fine Arts and
the Gardner Museum, why build a new institution?
 | | (Photograph by Thomas Hart Shelby.) |
There have been no major organizations committed to cutting-edge art of our time. As an
organization, the ICA did terrific work bringing in artists who had never been
shown both to Boston and to this country. But we had always been small. Boston
is on the cutting edge of technology, of the sciences, of intellectual thought,
so it’s really important to have the creative arts be part of that.
You made the first large gift of $5 million to start the $62
million building fund.
I jumped in to be a catalyst for
the campaign and to make a lead gift to get it going—and also to convince other
trustees that this could be done. I don’t think any organization can really
start without leadership. So it was very important to the ICA for someone to
take the plunge and make a significant first gift to bring people along.
Was it difficult to stay true to the original
concept?
I was lucky enough to be on the
architect selection committee. I traveled to Austria, Switzerland, Reykjavik,
Iceland, and other places to look at designs. We selected Diller Scofidio +
Renfro, who were close to home and had not built a great deal. I met them for a
luncheon at Brasserie in the Seagram’s building in New York; the interior of the
restaurant was the only architecture they had done in the U.S. I knew that they
were very creative, very talented, very edgy, but I didn’t know that they were
capable of doing such an inspirational building. I was moved when I saw their
initial drawings for the museum. The building looks so much like the drawings.
We didn’t give up any of the original concepts in terms of the beauty and the
flow of the space.
You purchased your first piece of art after graduating from
Simmons College in 1967, when you spent $200 on a Picasso print. How has
your taste evolved?
The first thing I was introduced
to was Impressionism. Then, in 1963, my father took me to the recreation of the
Armory Show in New York. I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of the art of
one’s time. Art shows the value of what’s happening in any given period. Right
now at the ICA there are Chantal Akerman’s video installations of the
Texas-Mexico border and issues surrounding illegal immigration. Then there’s a
Sigmar Polke painting with broken-down images from surveillance cameras in
Afghanistan.
But back to how I evolved. In 1989, the Guerrilla Girls—a group
of women who wear gorilla masks out in public so they are not scapegoats for
their subversive activity—had a poster. It is a picture of an odalisque—a woman
lounging on a chaise lounge—that says, "Do women have to be nude to get into the
Metropolitan?" It’s really about how art by women has been neglected by society,
and how the majority of art in museums has been art by men.
Yet they had a sense of humor about their
message.
Exactly. A sense of humor is
often a great way to make a point. A lot of my work and a lot of my interests
have been in empowering women. Over time, I started to buy art by women
artists—all of the art I’ve given to the ICA has been art by women.
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