Joseph Seipel at VCU School of the Arts (Photo by Jay Paul)
Joseph Seipel thought he was out. But they brought him back in.
The storied dean emeritus of the VCU School of the Arts stepped out of retirement Tuesday to become interim director of the university's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA), a $41 million edifice at Broad and Belvidere streets that has been heralded as a symbol of Richmond’s creative vibe.
Seipel’s arrival comes on the heels of a stunning announcement last week that Lisa Freiman was stepping down as ICA director, a post she had held for the past five years. Her departure left a leadership vacuum at a critical time, only three months before the ICA’s grand opening, with a stellar lineup of artists and exhibitions waiting in the wings.
“They needed someone right away to stabilize the ship,” says John Crutchfield of the Artemis Gallery on West Main Street. Crutchfield believes that Seipel will deliver stability in spades.
“He is an amazing person. He’s going to calm them all down. Things will [move] forward,” adds Crutchfield, whose gallery has been a Richmond fixture for 20 years.
In a telephone interview, Seipel says heading the ICA, if only temporarily, was an offer he couldn’t refuse. As arts dean, fundraising for the ICA and its timely completion became a priority for Seipel, if not an obsession.
“It’s been in my head for 15 years. I had been thinking about it for day and night. Now, to be able to help in the final stages before the opening is really exciting. It’s sort of my passion turned into reality,” Seipel says.
At age 70, Seipel says he’s not a candidate to be the ICA’s permanent director, but he believes he has the vigor to make a final sprint toward the finish line, and to support others as they do.
“Everyone on this staff is driven,” Seipel says.
The former arts dean says there is no way to adequately describe the ICA until you see it, see the way light and structure come together in a symphony that amplifies the whole.
“I’ve seen three of Steven Holl’s museums, and this one is just jaw-dropping,” Seipel says.
A rendering of the Broad Street entrance of the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU at the Markel Center (Image courtesy Steven Holl Architects/ICA at VCU)
He says he can’t remember all the details surrounding the offer to become the ICA’s interim director, but he does recall that he got VCU President Michael Rao’s call when he was finishing a workout at the VCU gym. He also talked to Provost Gail Hackett twice.
At one point, the School of the Arts led fundraising efforts for the ICA and oversaw the shaping of its mission, but gradually the new institute came under the wing of the university at large, which VCU officials have said was the plan all along.
Seipel says the ICA will offer VCU students an unparalleled opportunity to meet some of the world’s greatest artists and to be inspired by their works.
Although Seipel has not spoken to Freiman since VCU announced Jan. 11 that she would step down immediately from the ICA and return to teaching, he was on the committee that selected her to be the ICA’s inaugural director.
When Freiman came to Richmond from the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 2013, the ICA's opening was scheduled for 2016. The opening, amid construction snags and personnel shifts, is now set for April 21.
Statements released by both VCU and the ICA staff said Freiman would move into a tenured teaching spot where she can complete her work about mid-20th-century sculptor Claes Oldenburg.
In a news release accompanying the announcement, Freiman was quoted as saying, “It has been a tremendous honor to serve as the inaugural director of the ICA over the past five years and to have the opportunity to shape an institution from the ground up. With the completion of the capital campaign last fall, the launch of the endowment campaign and a dynamic roster of exhibitions and programs in place for the opening and beyond, I would like to turn my attention to some projects that I had to put on hold. Now that we have built out our curatorial and administrative staff, I am confident the ICA is in good hands.”
Freiman responded to a request for further comment by saying that the statement was, “truly what I wanted to say.”
The VCU announcement concerning Freiman's departure concluded by saying, “Interim leadership of the ICA will be announced shortly and a national search will be launched over the next few months for the next director of the ICA.”
An end-of-year director's message from Freiman, linked in a newsletter sent out Dec. 15, gave no hint of plans to leave the ICA. She presented an optimistic and upbeat — if clangorous — description of the administrative offices at long last moving into the ICA while construction still went on around the staff. "Despite the constant hum of hammers and drills, the light-infused spaces ... have begun to come to life in an almost magical way," she wrote. "We can't wait for art and artists to animate the building, for Ellwood Thompson's to introduce delicious food and drink, and to fill the ICA with curious-minded people." She made a nuanced reference to getting the place built: "Nothing worthwhile ever comes fast or easily. The evolution of the ICA from a dream to a reality has been an ambitious and dynamic journey. To say that it has been complex is an understatement."
Joe Seipel, then dean of the VCU School of the Arts, and then-ICA Director Lisa Freiman at the institute's 2014 groundbreaking (File photo)
At the 2014 groundbreaking event for the ICA, several donors and officials donned white Tyvek suits, resembling the founding members of Devo, and upon high rise lifters attempted a splatter action painting demonstration. While colors matching those of the ICA’s logo splashed and squirted onto the parking lot at Belvidere and Broad a lone trumpeter, leaning out of a white SUV paused at the light, played a spontaneous jazz overture.
The event marked an important benchmark for an idea first proposed 15 years ago, when then-VCUarts Dean Richard Toscan began working on the concept alongside people such as the late gallery owner Bev Reynolds.
The proof of its imminent arrival came when then-VCUarts Dean Seipel slipped on a blaze orange vest and operated the controls of a backhoe to cut out a chunk of asphalt.
In early 2015, work halted for five months. By April 2016, things appeared to back on track, as hardhat tours began. In June of that year, Seipel retired.
The ICA story, though, is a longer one, going back at least to the late 1990s, when VCU considered replacing the aging and elevator-less Anderson Gallery. For decades, and in particular during the years before Richmond boasted of such places, the Franklin Street space showcased contemporary art made here and from throughout the world. A place was planned for Cary and Belvidere, but the the tech boom and financial support instead sprouted up the VCU School of Engineering. By 2004, plans were underway for a downtown exhibition place. Architectural plans were rendered. But that concept fizzled, too, and the Anderson's long run ended in 2015 with the expectation of the ICA opening and additional exhibition walls at The Depot. The Anderson, though, became necessary for undergraduate and graduate shows.
Margo Crutchfield, curator at large for the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech, says that "Declaration," the opening exhibition that Freiman and her colleagues have put together, is provocative and speaks to the times. The sister of gallery owner John Crutchfield, she says Freiman has an international reputation as a scholar, curator and innovator.
“[The exhibition] will anchor the ICA’s reputation,” says Margo Crutchfield, who formerly was senior curator at the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, and previous to that was an associate curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
With the shakeup in leadership, art curator and former Anderson Gallery director Ashley Kistler says Seipel is "an excellent choice" to lead the ICA at this moment. "I can't imagine anyone better equipped to step into this role," she says, noting that he shepherded the project from the beginning and has been instrumental in raising funds for "this remarkable addition to our cultural landscape."
Seipel says bringing the ICA to fruition has been a long and challenging undertaking, but its opening will justify the effort, not only now but for generations to come. In many ways, he suggests that the ICA reflects the city’s creative aspirations.
“We are the city, and the city is us,” Seipel says.
