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The Birth of the Modern
Steve Peltzman walks into a large gallery at MoMA, and a light goes on automatically. The walls are blank, the floor empty. The light going on, he explains, is the art. In another gallery, a work by Jeff Koons has three basketballs floating in a fish tank. "Why is this art?" Peltzman says. "Don't ask me."
MoMA has been confusing -- and delighting -- visitors for almost eight decades. Founded in 1929, the museum started in half a dozen rented rooms in Midtown, displaying works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat and van Gogh. Three years later, the museum moved to its present location.
"The work of art is a symbol, a visible symbol of the human spirit in its search for truth, freedom and perfection," Alfred Barr, MoMA's founding director, once said.
Over the years, the museum became an icon of the art it championed, its galleries offering a walking-textbook tour through the canon of modernism. It has also become a highly successful midmarket business, complete with a global brand, large educational and publishing operations, and five retail outlets selling $40 million a year in merchandise.
In 2006 the nonprofit institution reported assets of more than $1.5 billion, with operating revenue of $133 million. That year the museum earned $21 million from ticket sales and $14 million from membership dues. About 2.5 million people visit the museum every year.
Today, the collection includes 150,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and design objects, as well as 22,000 films and 4 million movie stills. A research library houses 300,000 books, and archives document the history of modern art.
When Steve Peltzman was hired as the museum's first CIO in early 2001, things were already getting crowded on 53rd Street. The museum was scheduled to close in little more than a year for a $425-million renovation.
For Peltzman, it was the ideal job. "Art has always been part of my life," he says. "This marries my two loves: art and technology. And this was such a grand opportunity. It was a total clean slate."
With an undergraduate degree from MIT and an MBA from Columbia University, Peltzman already knew something about big projects. During his seven years of service in the U.S. Air Force, Peltzman worked in the project management office for the B-2 bomber program before doing stints at a couple of companies in the private sector.
"I'm not a drill sergeant type," he says. "My military experience helped put things in perspective. You really get to learn management and leadership in a big environment. At 22, 23 years old, I had a bigger budget than I have now. I gave briefings to four-star generals and congressmen."
One general promised to shut down any meeting if even one stakeholder was absent. Peltzman applied that to IT planning at MoMA. "We don't make decisions without all the stakeholders being in the room," he says.
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