How Penn State’s Palmer Museum of Art prepares for exhibitions

For 50 years, the Palmer Museum of Art has provided the Penn State community with opportunities to engage with art focused on culture, society and pressing issues in the current world, according to its website.

The exhibitions demonstrate the museum’s mission of providing teaching and research to students, faculty and residents.

Brandi Breslin, the Palmer’s director of education, said her job is to focus on how to best deliver learning experiences within the exhibitions.

She said the artwork is chosen by more than a curator, but also by educators, staff and experts on issues that impact communities and ideas the most.

“We have to think about specific ideas around the artwork,” Breslin said. “How the collection becomes a collection of artwork, what ideas are inherent in it, what ideas are relevant to the community and the time period, what artwork speaks to all of that — those are the things we think about when we select the art.”

According to Breslin, exhibitions at the Palmer are more than just the art itself, and the teams behind exhibitions often work on long lists that help expand upon the art itself.

“Other staff members are working on what we call a checklist to see if the art is in our collection and to assess the objects to make sure they’re in good condition. In order to be exhibited, if there’s photography that’s needed, for example, our prep team starts to work on the installation of the artwork themselves,” Breslin said. “This then goes into thinking about what kind of special machinery might be needed and things such as exhibition design, paint colors [or] layouts of the room.”

Some of this work is handed to Will Bergmann, who is the Palmer’s chief preparator. He focuses directly on several key aspects of the building of an exhibition.

“As the chief preparator, the exhibition begins for me when it is announced by the curator. Once the exhibition has been announced, checklists have been distributed that list the works of art the curator has selected for the show,” Bergmann said. “I then lay them out in a 3D rendering program. These layouts go back and forth amongst the staff until all are satisfied.”

Bergmann acknowledged the teamwork and collaboration that goes into one exhibition.

“It really is a team effort, and everyone here at the Palmer does a great job of supporting one another,” Bergmann said. “Everyone has a unique role to each exhibit, but we all must work in conjunction to put together the strongest exhibitions possible.”

With this in mind, both Bergmann and Breslin said this preparation takes a lot of work and time. The Palmer schedules exhibitions far in advance in hopes of balancing different ideas and having smooth transitions between exhibitions.

“Our exhibition planning process really is looking three, four or five years out in advance where we’re kind of thinking about balancing out our exhibition schedule,” Breslin said. “Different parts of the permanent collection are being focused on, while also incorporating works that aren’t in the collection.”

All of this helps the team achieve “an impetus of discovery and reflection through the visual arts,” according to Breslin.

Bergmann and Breslin are not the only Palmer employees with these ambitions. Joyce Robinson, the Palmer’s assistant director, expressed a similar idea.

“We try to keep in mind curricular needs across campus when planning our lineup of exhibitions, always with a goal of fulfilling our mission to present ‘thought-provoking exhibitions and cross-disciplinary programs,’” Robinson said. “Foremost in our thinking, too, is presenting exhibitions that foster inclusion, diversity, equity and access.”

For Robinson, the organization and planning of events is “key” and helps bring the museum together as a whole.

“Creating our exhibition schedule, [which is] typically nine special temporary exhibitions each year, is a collaborative process involving the curatorial team, education department, art handling team and the director,” Robinson said.

Robinson said the Palmer presents two different kinds of exhibitions: shows curated and toured by other institutions, and exhibitions the museum organizes itself.

For shows designed by the Palmer, Robinson said the “themes are often suggested by individual curators” or occasionally “by interested faculty across the campus.”

As the exhibitions reach completion and opening, Breslin said people should take away the connection they form with the idea an art piece displays.

“When I’m celebrating a birthday, or an anniversary, I reflect on what I have done with my life, what have I done in the past year, who have I spent time with, what are those important things I’ve done, where I want to go from here also and who I am and what makes me who I am,” Breslin said. “Those questions are things I also hope people may ask themselves when they connect to an idea that we are displaying.

“This art is the particular lens for looking at who we are and connecting it with the idea of its identity.”