Off Center

A series of reflections on outgoing Walker director Kathy Halbreich from colleagues and friends.

“The Walker is the standard by which I measure every other cultural institution. And Kathy, from the musician's POV, is the Queen. Kathy always makes me feel ‘included,’ and in many museums, the directors don’t usually interact with the musicians. I feel like she treats everyone the same, whether you are the artist, the musician, or the ticket buyer.

During an e-mail exchange surrounding my commission, she recounted, ‘I had a boss who said, “Everything before the ‘but’ is bull**it.’ I came to depend on her experience and choice words during that process. She always reminded me of my mission, as did the pressure of having a Walker commission. In the last line of her resignation, she said it all: ‘Thanks for helping me do what I loved.’ I thank her for helping me complete my most ambitious work to date, and I hope there are no ‘buts’ in this.”

–Jason Moran, jazz musician. His album Artist-in-Residence (Blue Note, 2006), was created in part as a response to the Walker's collection

“Kathy is my role model. She is my art-world hero — a visionary leader. It’s almost embarrassing how often we at the Hammer say, ‘What would the Walker do? What does the Walker do?’ It's our mantra because they are the standard to which we aspire. Kathy and her staff over the years have made an institution like no other in the world, and I look to it with the greatest admiration.”

–Ann Philbin, director, Hammer Museum

“Kathy has always been an innovator in creating trust between between artists and audiences. Over the past fifteen years the programme at the Walker has has consistently broken new ground, while the new building has lessons for us all in recognising that performance, exhibitions and thoughtful interpretation are all part of the visitor experience in the twenty-first century museum.”

–Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate