After Trouble With Trump, Kim Sajet Embraces Milwaukee Art Museum

Museum directors don’t usually make national headlines for their work. But earlier this year, President Donald Trump lashed out at Kim Sajet for the way she had managed the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

The president called her “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position.” Although the Smithsonian Institution opposed Trump’s efforts to fire Sajet, she resigned from the job in June.

She was promptly hired by the Milwaukee Art Museum as its new director, a position she begins Sept. 22.

In an interview with WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” Sajet said she didn’t want to get into the details of Trump’s criticism.

“But I will say that I’m proud of what I did in that my guiding principle was always written on the Great Seal of America, ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many, one, not ‘E pluribus lecti,’ which is translated as: out of many, some,” Sajet said.

Sajet said the way people think about art and culture is always changing and museums should strive to challenge how people think.

“Not only is (an art museum) a place of often beauty, but it can be a place of profound reflection: self-reflection and reflection about culture in general,” Sajet added. “I would argue that museums are one of the places where we actually think about the meaning of life. Why are we here? What’s our purpose?”

ARTnews reported that in her time at the Portrait Gallery, Sajet had doubled attendance, brought a contemporary perspective to its collection and raised more than $85 million.

A Dutch citizen who was born in Nigeria and raised in Australia, Sajet brings an international perspective to the Milwaukee Art Museum. She spoke to “Wisconsin Today” about what attracted her to Milwaukee, the role art museums play in society and the power of art to defuse political animosity.

The following has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

Kate Archer Kent: What attracted you to the Milwaukee Art Museum?

Kim Sajet: The collection is always the first thing I look at when I say, “Do I think I could do good here? Do I think I can advance the mission of the institution?” And what I particularly love about it is that it’s international. And as you can probably tell from this accent, I’m not from these parts. My background is international.

It has a really wonderful early collection, thanks to the Layton Collection that actually helped establish the museum back in the 1950s. (Starting this month), we’re celebrating the Bradley Collection of the most extraordinary international modern art. So for me, it was definitely about the collection. The site, of course, is wonderful. Who doesn’t love the building?

KAK: How can art museums reflect or distort cultural identity?

KS: I’m going to go way back to evolutionary biology — because it’s not because our bodies are so much stronger than other species, or that our brains are so much bigger, or even that we’re that much cleverer. What really has distinguished Homo sapiens is the fact that we can pass on knowledge to the next generation.

So the very early museums were actually considered “cabinets of curiosity,” or wunderkammers. And the idea was that you stuff these places full of all the man-made and natural wonders — everything from dinosaur bones to portraits of people — and then you would learn from them, and you would pass it on to the next generation. So we all got smarter, and we learned from our mistakes, good and bad, right?

The Smithsonian was established for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. It was a tool of democracy. It was a gift by James Smithson, who was an earl who was actually the illegitimate son of nobility in London, England. He never came to the United States but loved the idea of what the United States stood for, the new democracy.

So here we are today, and that’s exactly what the Milwaukee Art Museum and all museums are really established for. The basic premise hasn’t changed at all. But I do think the way we’re doing our work has changed over time and for the better.

KAK: How has it changed? 

KS: The original idea was that you were — we used to hate this term at the Smithsonian — “the nation’s attic.” You had everything all stored away and then you had this top-down hierarchy of knowledge, and all the really smart people told everybody else what they should think. Now it’s a lot more of a meeting place and shared ideas and sort of a space to bring communities together.

And in fact, museums may be places where you get unsettled or you walk out a bit confused, and that’s OK, too.

KAK: With political violence on the rise, I wonder, is there a place for art museums to help in any way dial back hateful rhetoric?

KS: I truly believe there are more things that unite us than divide us. We’re in this age of fragmentation, and that fragmentation has been supercharged by social media.

Museums are places where you can come together, you can meet somebody who you may not normally meet, have an experience that you may not normally have. But also put your device away, have an original, unique experience that wasn’t fed to you on a platter through your social feed and meet someone halfway. A real power that museums have is as a convening place where you can build empathy with others. If we learn more from each other, a lot of those differences become smaller and smaller.

Listen to the WPR report

After criticism from Trump, new Milwaukee Art Museum director says art should spark curiosity was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.