James Snyder
The Power of Place: From Rural America to the Creative Cultural World
Summary
James Snyder discusses his personal journey from rural America to the creative cultural world. He and Josh Ginsburg discuss the role of fine art institutions, MoMA and The Israel Museum as anchors for modernism as a vocabulary and as a backdrop for presenting a narrative of our culture. This lecture deep-dives into architecture of cultural institutions.
James Snyder
James S. Snyder is executive chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation, Inc., and director emeritus of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. He also serves as a senior fellow of the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School. As executive chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation, James works closely with the foundation’s international leadership to formalize and promote the city’s role as an urban model for cross-communal coexistence—across its economic, social, and cultural spectrum and for the mixed community of Jews, Christians, and Muslims who live and work there. During his twenty-year tenure as the Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum, James led the museum through the most dramatic period of growth since its founding and secured its stature as one of the world’s foremost museums.
Josh Ginsburg
Josh Ginsburg is the director of A4 Arts Foundation, a free-to-the-public, nonprofit laboratory for the arts of southern Africa, founded by Wendy Fisher. He is also the curator of the South African stream of Fisher’s private collection of artworks. He holds a BS in electrical-mechanical engineering (UCT, 2004) and a MFA (UCT, 2011). His current research interests include institutional modalities and collecting/patronage practices.