Bowers Finds Success With Guest Curators

In contrast to OCMA beefing up its curator staff, the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana has trimmed its in-house curator roster from three to one--Armand Labbe, who oversees the permanent collection and is an expert in pre-Columbian art and shamanism. In doing so, Bowers has shifted away from shows produced by staff, instead using guest curators.

“In the past, we used to keep a local view, drawing simply from our own permanent collection and our own curatorial staff in-house,” Bowers President Peter C. Keller said. “But this would limit us in terms of the quality of exhibitions we can show nationally and internationally.”

The focus on guest curators and blockbusters seems to work for Bowers. Even with its limited resources and relatively small size, Bowers has featured ambitious programming.

Bowers has managed to carve a niche in the Orange County art scene, showcasing cultural exhibitions from around the world. The museum’s two highest profile shows, “Secret World of the Forbidden City” and “Egyptian Treasures From the British Museum,” were blockbusters created by Chinese and Egyptian art scholars.

“You can only expect a person to be a scholar in only a number of subjects,” Keller said. “We’re trying to be global at Bowers and bring the finest collections to Orange County and Southern California. So that means going beyond our own collections and using the finest curators in the world.”

As museums have become more economically driven, the use of guest curators and art consultants rather than a full-time curator staff is part of a national trend, art experts say.

“You might hire someone on contract with a specific expertise for the exhibit, but the downside is that person doesn’t have a personal investment in the institution, the history of the collection, the community or the intricacies of the donor relationships,” said Elisa Phelps, chairwoman of the Curators Committee of the American Assn. of Museums. Phelps is based at the Witte Museum in San Antonio. “They come in, deal with the subject and they go away. There’s no one right way. It just depends on the institution and its mission.”