Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/691761
culturedmag.com 175 Most museums have a slow-moving mission to usher works into history, preserving and conserving culture but, under Philbin, the Hammer embraces risk and flux. "One of our jobs is to take a snapshot," she explains. "It might not stand the test of time but it certainly illustrates this moment in time." Philbin attributes her comfort with change to being the eldest of six in an Irish Catholic family where her "entire life was utter chaos all the time." She essentially raised her siblings while her parents worked. "In a lot of ways that made me the bossy girl I am," admits Philbin, who is intolerant of behavior she finds hard to understand, such as passive aggression. "I am just aggressive," she says with a robust laugh. "But I'm nice." Indeed, museum people who have worked for Philbin describe her with great affection. "You admire Annie's perfectionism and directness because she is so very generous and focused on raising the bar in the field," says Susan Sayre Batton, who is now deputy director for curatorial affairs at the San Jose Museum of Art. For Philbin, the hardest thing about her job is navigating the tension between "staying at 30,000 feet" and believing "the devil is in the details." Despite her love of the minutiae of graphic design, she understands that her forte is grappling with the big picture. "Rather than going deeply into art history or the story of an exhibition, I've gone deeply into a city and what an institution can mean to it, and how it can affect people's lives," she explains. To this end, Philbin will be coming up with strategies for a capital campaign to expand and renovate the museum. Andrea Fraser, an artist whose work is often highly critical of museums and who sits on the Hammer's Artist Council, has a "ton of respect" for the way Philbin fundraises. Fraser says she is impressed by the way she avoids "creating relationships and obligations that could divert her program" and by her maintenance of a year-round schedule of talks that provide "vital debate about politics as well as art." As it happens, wealth is not the primary criteria by which Philbin recruits her board members. "I'm more concerned with their motivation," she says. While men occupy the directorships of America's biggest museums, women run many of the smaller and medium-sized public spaces. Philbin suggests that she and her colleagues (like Lisa Phillips at New York's New Museum and Thelma Golden at the Studio Museum in Harlem) have been offered the big jobs but have refused them. "Women get very attached to their baby, so their museum becomes the thing for which they have aspirations," she says. Under her command, the Hammer's budget has grown from $7 million to $23 million and its staff has increased from 40 to 108. "Generally men are ambitious for themselves," she adds. "But women are more likely to be ambitious for their institution." Jonas Wood's Untitled (The Silver and Black), 2009.