This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Sept. 10, 2011 - Washington Boulevard, Grand Center's Main Street for the visual arts, was hopping Friday night with big exhibit openings. Although the buzz about the art was at high volume -- especially in regard to the Pulitzer Foundation's magnificent exhibition devoted to images of the Buddha -- the other subject being discussed was Paul Ha.
Ha, who has been director of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis for almost a decade, is heading to Cambridge, Mass., where he will direct the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's List Visual Arts Center. Ha is expected to take his new job in early December.
The Contemporary, which began life in 1980 as the First Street Forum in a one-room gallery in the historic Raeder Place building downtown, has experienced enormous changes during Ha's tenure here. The most visible, and most impressive in a time of financial and political unrest, is the museum's new building at 3750 Washington Blvd., at Spring Avenue.
The concrete, glass and wire mesh building was designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture, Portland. Cloepfil was one of the early stars of an architectural movement that rejected the referential pretentions of postmodernism, and directed its attention toward the more refined, and entirely more original tradition of modernist design. Cloepfil was selected as architect of the Contemporary building before Ha moved to St. Louis in 2002.
The List Visual Arts Center is housed in a building designed by MIT alumnus I.M. Pei and his firm, I.M. Pei and Partners. Called the Wiesner Building in homage to MIT's 13th president, Jerome B. Wiesner, and his wife, Laya W. Wiesner, the building also houses the MIT Media Laboratory. The campus is on the north bank of the Charles River in Cambridge.
MIT was founded in 1861 and opened in 1865. It did not begin collecting art until the mid-20th century. and its permanent collection focuses mainly on modernist and contemporary works of art. Included in the collection are sculptures installed around the MIT campus. The List's adventurous and innovative loan program permits students to borrow original works of art from the collection for display in their own quarters and public spaces.
The collection Ha will be responsible for numbers about 3,000 works of art and includes paintings, sculptures, photographs and prints.
In a statement issued by MIT, Philip A. Khoury, the school's associate provost and professor of history, said, "We are delighted that Paul will lead the List. ... In Paul, the List is gaining a well-respected and proven arts leader who has earned the admiration of his staff, the communities in which he has lived and worked, as well as the international arts community.
Khoury, who oversees the List Center, also said "We ... look forward to collaborating on ways to further solidify the List's standing among students, faculty, staff, alumni, visitors and contemporary visual arts institutions in the Boston area, which are playing an increasingly prominent role, nationally and internationally."
In MIT's statement to the press, Ha said he was particularly interested in an established tradition of experimentation.
"My goal is to try to build on the List's strong reputation while also expanding its role in the lives of students and the greater MIT community," he said. "Just as the MIT Museum explores the foundations and frontiers of science and technology, the List Center for the Visual Arts explores the foundations and frontiers of the visual arts, serving as a laboratory for forward thinking and experimentation in the art world."
During his near-decade in St. Louis, the Contemporary mounted 92 exhibitions under Ha's direction and brought the work of 223 artists to St. Louis. Many of these artists received their first major museum exhibition at the Contemporary. Before coming to St. Louis, he was deputy director of programs and external affairs at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Conn., and director of White Columns gallery in New York.