After making sure that all the artworks from Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers are safely crated and transported back to their respective (and far-flung) homes, registrar Gwen Bitz brings her own career to a close at the Walker at the end of the month. Recognized globally as a leading registrar, her receipt last year of the Dudley Wilkinson Award of Distinction was only the cap on an amazing 31-year career.
Bitz’s many duties as registrar included coordinating international loans of art from the Walker collection, traveling with art to institutions worldwide to ensure its safe care, and working with curators and artists in organizing the installation and deinstallation of exhibitions. Working in what is perhaps the ultimate behind-the-scenes (and unseen) job at any museum, Bitz naturally shuns the limelight. However, in looking back on her years at the Walker, she did elect to put together this very personal Top-10 List:
1. Martha Graham – I held the microphone for her as Martin Friedman interviewed her in connection with the exhibition Noguchi’s Imaginary Landscapes.
2. Isamu Noguchi – he told me “never to yearn to be where you are not.”
3. Ray Johnson – he streaked the Cinema stage just before he returned (clothed) to present his lecture [in connection with Viewpoints : Ray Johnson in 1978].
4. William Wiley (left, 1981 exhibition Wiley Territory) – a brilliant wordsmith and artist
5. Chuck Close – he told me he forged ski lift tickets because he couldn’t afford the price of tickets.
6. Bruce Nauman – because he is the king
7. Peter Fischli and David Weiss – very, VERY funny guys
8. Robert Gober (center) – an absolute perfectionist
9. Huang Yong Ping – always working hard making art, in spite of obstacles
10. Rotraut Klein (Rotraut Uecker Klein Moquay) – an extremely spiritual person; she felt Yves Klein’s “Dialogue with Myself” recording was presented better at the Walker [in Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers] than anywhere else
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