Thomas Krens and the Guggenheim

Description: Cembalest notes that Thomas Krens' influence extends beyond the Guggenheim into the museum world in general.

Question: Now that Thomas Krens is stepping down, what direction will the Guggenheim take?

Transcript: I’m not sure what direction they are going to head, but I think that what we are going to see is that there has been really a very large influence of Thomas Krens on the museum world in general. I know that doesn’t answer your question, because by the time that comes out, frankly they could have to hired someone and it won’t really make any sense, but I’ll say that there were things that--for example, branding, when he came in from Yale School of Organization and Management and he was talking about branding and everyone said “Ah, this is completely inappropriate for the world of fine arts museums.” Now they all talk about branding. For example, the star--the legacy of this idea of the starchitect is a little mixed and, in fact, after this success of the Bilbao Guggenheim, there were plans for all kinds of other Guggenheim in Austria, Rio, in Mexico, in Taiwan all of them attached to starchitects, and none of them happened.

Question: Why did that happen?

Transcript: Because all of these projects again are combinations of finance, diplomacy, politics, local governments; they’re very hard to get off the ground and in the end a place like Bilbao where there is a provincial government which really had a lot of money. That was a very special case. In some place like Rio where there is not that kind of money, because the standard of living in Brazil is very different than the standard of living in northern Spain, it’s much harder to get something like that off the ground.

Recorded on: 1/14/08