Samuel H. Kress Interpretive Fellow Brittany Rubin joined the staff of Cornell University’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art this academic year where she will provide a fresh perspective on works of art by using technology. Rubin will also take on the role of teacher.
Rubin’s most recent project for the museum involves a cell phone tour for specialty works in the Medieval and Renaissance Gallery at the Johnson. In this cell phone tour, Rubin records her voice for a specified message explaining the works of art to the visitors in the gallery at that time. Rubin explained why she was given this task.
“On the second floor right now we have some of our greatest hits, equipped with a little more background,” she said. “Because I come in with both a different specialty and point of view than the other staff members, they ask me to maybe record some background information for specialty works.”
Not only does Rubin work on the curatorial side of the museum as a Kress fellow, but she works on the educational side as well. She has learned different teaching strategies from the museum’s point of view and how to connect art and education for visitors of the museum.
Cathy Klimaszewski, the Associate Director and Harriett Ames Charitable Trust Curator of Education at the Johnson Museum, has been mentoring Rubin throughout her Kress Fellowship and explained the work Rubin has been doing with the educational department of the museum.
“We have many classes–over 300 classes a year that come here to the museum in conjunction with their studies at Cornell– and [the classes] use original works of art to enhance the syllabus,” she said. “Brittany has supported that mission by looking at our systems and how they could be more efficient and effective.”
A self-proclaimed medievalist, Rubin is someone brought in from a completely different museum with an extensive knowledge of art. Rubin handles art well, and her new ideas for the museum, such as the cell phones, are very valued by the people that she works with.
One of Rubin’s other mentors, Andy Weislogel, who is the Seymour R. Askin, Jr. ‘47 Curator at the Johnson Museum, explained how helpful Rubin has been in her Kress Fellowship.
“It’s been a really good fit to have her work with that part of the collection [Pre-modern art of Europe] given her expertise, her experience in that area and also her training in medieval pre-modern art,” he said. “I’m teaching a course on Rembrandt etchings this spring and she’s been immensely helpful in preparing some of that material for a semester long course as well as all the help and preparation she does for teaching single visit classes.”
Though Rubin has been so well received by her mentors, this is only a one-year position. The staff members at the Johnson Museum did have to apply for this fellowship, which is only awarded to a minimum of six American Art Museums each year. This fellowship has been previously awarded to institutions such as the Williams College Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
“We applied [for the Kress Fellow] and it’s a competitive process…so we were honored and delighted to get the position. I think Brittany was an excellent candidate, so it was a win-win,” Klimaszewski said.
The staff at the Johnson would love to have another chance to welcome a Kress Fellow into the museum in the future, but for now it benefits from the work that Rubin has been doing, and she is very happy in her position as well.
“I love art, if you couldn’t tell,” Rubin said. “Just the amount and strength of the Johnson’s collection is really exciting for me and I am so lucky that I get to be a part of it every day.”
