If there is one word that describes Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe and her work in visual arts, it is “universal.” As vice president of the Asian Society for International Arts Programs at 14 community centers, director of the social museum and founder of the arts director for the past three years, Yun Mapplethorpe has connected East and West for more than a decade. It now looks set to continue its international outreach to the Katonah Museum of Art as its new executive director, beginning August 15. It follows Leslie Griesbach Schultz, who has been acting interim executive director since September 2021, succeeding Michael. Gitlitz, which concluded its three-year term as executive director in June 2021.
“I feel artists are the mirror of their time, and they raise the mirror to what is happening around them,” she said. “The way people react to art is personal, very powerful… and it brings people together.”
Considering what Yun Mapplethorpe sees as central to the art of public speaking and its interest in the Katonah Museum – a non-funded institute with a $ 1.95 million operating budget and 19 staff offering various exhibitions and programs – it is not surprising. says it is seeking to expand its museum presence on the world stage. While it is difficult to discuss specific issues, she said it is fair to say that this will include new marketing efforts and awareness raising for business leaders.
“We moved from (New York City) to Weston 2017,” said Yun Mapplethorpe herself, her husband, photographer Edward Mapplethorpe, and their 7-year-old son. “When I am here and see how our community needs art and culture, I really hope to integrate into these communities.” One way to do this is at the Katonah Museum in the fall at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills.
In the meantime, she will head a museum dedicated to our environment. Founded in 1954 Katonah Village Library as Katonah Gallery – the museum changed its name in 1990 when it moved to its modern, Edward Larrabee Barnes home-design at Route 22 on Jay Street – KMA does not preserve the collection but nevertheless presents gifts. and educational programs related to different cultures, seasons and media. From July 10 to September 25, the museum offers two exhibits with international lighting. “A broken culture” has found dozens of artists from around the world teaching old media new techniques when they got married past and present. “Remy Jungerman: High Ground” has a Dutch-born artist Suriname, who splits his time between Amsterdam and the former New Amsterdam (New York City) and presents new examples of “horizontals” and “verticals” “(organizations leaning against a wall or standing freely in order;” Cubes “and” panels “made of cloth. Untitled “(1969), and two outdoor artists by Manolo Valdés (until March 13) that trace the history of the art -” Caballero, “inspired by Diego Velázquez in his horse-drawn cartoon of Philip IV; and” Butterflies, ” head painting Henri Matisse “Woman with Hat.”
Meanwhile, the Asian Community Museum in Manhattan is exhibiting one of its latest exhibitions under the leadership of Yun Mapplethorpe. “Mirror Image: Changing Chinese Identity” (as of August 14) considers 19 works by seven artists from the ba ling hou generation. Born in China in the 1980s, they came of age after the Mao Zedong era of Western influence, expanding the economy even when they saw the political consequences of one child being chosen for boys, which left a whole generation of men as well- a few Chinese women to marry and these women and foreign brides from countries like Vietnam suddenly put in the driver’s seat. (In Chinese culture, a boy is considered to prefer a girl in part because he would take care of his parents when they are older.)
The overall effect, says Yun Mapplethorpe, is that the ba ling hou generation sees itself as part of a global team. It is an appropriate song for the Asian community for Yun Mapplethorpe, who has connected China and the United States with her personal life as well as her career. Her parents left mainland China in the 1950s – her father moved to Taipei, Taiwan; her mother in Hong Kong. Eventually, they traveled alone to the United States where they met at the University of Michigan. Growing up in Michigan and Toronto, Yun Mapplethorpe had the kind of childhood that helped define Asian Americans as “minorities”, including performing arts in places like the Detroit Institute of the Arts. This was especially true during her high school years at Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a group of kindergarten through 12th grade students who were known for their hard work in art as well as academics, Yun Mapplethorpe said.
Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in art, spent her younger years studying art history. (Today, she is on the board of the art museum of the college.) Yun Mapplethorpe will continue for nine years at the Museum of Modern Art, first as a friend and finally as a curatorial assistant at the MoMA Department of Painting and the Arts, where she had some of the most important ment-advisor experiences in her career. During that time, she earned a Master of Arts degree in contemporary art and critical studies from Columbia University. (She also graduated from the Getty Leadership Institute of the Museum Leadership Education Program.)
But she always called the eastern part of her identity. She earned her master’s degree in two Chinese artists – printer and installation artist Xu Bing and multi-media artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who served as visual and visual director at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Yun Mapplethorpe, the project director of his studio, joined the sport, an experience she described as “beautiful. I even went to the women’s gold medal match between the United States and Brazil.” (US won 1-0.)
Her time at Pace Prints in Manhattan convinced her that “I don’t mean to be in the business world.” She served as a consultant in Beijing and a guard at Hunter College of Arts, which led her to join the Asian community as a guardian of modern and contemporary art. Increased in rankings, it has produced or co-produced more than 25 exhibitions and also developed and led the social arts 2021 & amp; Museum meetings, a three-day international conference that explored the treatment of the renovated museum of post-colonial stories.
Her success on both continents – she also visited her parents Shanghai when her father was one of the Chinese-U.S. business partnerships such as the implementation of Ford Motor Co. – gave Yun Mapplethorpe a unique perspective on China-US relations at a critical juncture. She thinks the two countries may be surprisingly similar in some ways.
“People should not look at China as monolithic,” she said. “They have to look at a very different country with a lot of nuances. It’s a very big country with very modern people.”
She would also like to let readers know that the idea of Asian Americans being a “minority” – which totally rises when sending their children to Ivy League schools – is a myth. According to the Pew Research Center, Asian Americans have transformed Black Americans into the most economically divided group or ethnic group in the United States, with some subgroups being significantly better while others are more behind them. Covid-19 exacerbated economic challenges in places such as Manhattan’s Chinatown, the largest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with hatred leading to stockpiles of arrests, verbal and physical attacks and in some cases even murder.
In the depths of the tragedy, Yun Mapplethorpe, who regularly traveled to the city – her husband is there in the studio – said she “felt anxious.”
Now it feels a little better and also thinks the city will recover from the challenges of Covid which is part of its cycle.
Still, she said, “Asian Americans need help. They need our support. ”
For more, visit katonahmuseum.org and asiasociety.org.
