06-05-2022 Hall of Fame - Flipbook - Page 14
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Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, June 5, 2022
BALTIMORE SUN’S 2022
BUSINESS AND CIVIC HALL OF FAME HONOREE
REBECCA ALBAN
HOFFBERGER
R
ebecca Alban Hoffberger might be the only founder of
an art museum in the history of the world who doesn’t
care much about aesthetics. If the American Visionary Art Museum has become a much-loved fixture on
Baltimore’s cityscape in the past 27 years, Ms. Hoffberger thinks it’s because she never got hung up on
how stuff looks.
As she puts it: “It’s just too late in the world to have
an institution be primarily about things, no matter how
hip or cool those things are.”
Granted, AVAM has a permanent collection of more than 4,000 artworks,
created by visionary and self-taught artists, that are quirky, touching, thought-provoking — and, yes, in many cases extraordinarily beautiful.
But for Ms. Hoffberger, art has always been a means to an end, a tool akin to a
monkey wrench or tuning fork. Her aim? To use work by outsider artists to spark a
dialogue that will make the planet healthier, more compassionate and more sane.
Ms. Hoffberger stepped down as AVAM’s director in April, though she’s
remaining in her office through the summer to help ease the transition to her
successor, Jenenne Whitfield.
“People in Baltimore might
not realize that AVAM isn’t just
completely different from other
museums in Baltimore,” said John
Maizels, founder of RAW Vision
Magazine, a London-based publication of outsider art. “It is completely
different from any other museum
in the world, including museums of
visionary art. AVAM — and Rebecca
— are world-famous.”
AVAM is not be the first museum
dedicated to showcasing artworks
by artists who are often homeless, incarcerated or mentally ill.
That distinction belongs to Switzerland’s pioneering Collection de
l’Art Brut. But AVAM is the world’s
largest museum of outsider art, Mr.
Maizels said, and the only visionary
museum to mount annual themed
exhibits that incorporate the works
of multiple artists.
The titles to some of those annual
exhibits sum up AVAM’s mission,
such as 2019’s “The Secret Life of
Earth: Alive! Awake! (and possibly
Really Angry!)” and 2005’s “Race,
Class & Gender: Three things that
contribute ‘0’ to character, because
being a schmuck is an equal opportunity for everyone!”
Mr. Maizels said most visionary
art museums take a more traditional
approach to mounting exhibits.
“They tend to treat outsider art
in a much more academic way,” Mr.
Maizels said. “These exhibits tend
to be centered around one artist.
Rebecca takes it one step further
with her themed approach. It’s a
very interesting way to do exhibits.
There’s something very deep about
them that reflects the human condition.”
Ms. Hoffberger’s first encounter with outsider art came when
she was 5-years-old, and she and
her father picked up a hitchhiker.
The man was nicknamed “Bumblebee” because he communicated
by making a buzzing noise in his
throat. As Bumblebee sat in the back
seat, he pulled paper and scissors
from beneath his coat and began
fashioning an intricate string of
paper dolls and paper animals. Cut
into the body of each figure were
letters spelling out “R-e-b-e-c-c-a.”
“It was the most wonderful experience,” Ms. Hoffberger said. “It was
the first time I ever met an adult
who didn’t negotiate reality like my
parents and their neighbors did.”
But it took three decades for
Ms. Hoffberger to begin planning
AVAM. First she studied mime
in Paris with Marcel Marceau,
cofounded a ballet company, wrote
grants to install field hospitals
in Nigeria and Somalia, studied
nontraditional healing techniques
in Mexico and gave birth to two
daughters.
She became newly enthralled
with the work of visionary artists in
1984 while working with psychiatric patients as development director
for Mount Sinai Hospital’s People
Encouraging People program.
Though her clients operated on
society’s fringes, some created
powerful art.
Initially Ms. Hoffberger’s plans
for a new museum met with considerable resistance, partly because she
doesn’t come from a traditional art
world background. But even that
was helpful. As she put it: “When
you get pushback to your plans, you
hear what people are really thinking
but are too polite to say. When what
they say is valid, own it. When what
they say is not valid, explain why.
Criticism can help you clarify your
mission and build your case.”
As she winds up her time at
AVAM, Ms. Hoffberger is working
to raise $3 million for an endowment. She is acting as a consultant to
her former assistant Gage Branda,
who is curating the themed exhibit
that will open this fall, “ABUNDANCE: Too Much, Too Little, Just
Right.”
And she is compiling a book of
quotes of the philosophic, scientific
and humorous insights that have
served as wall text for the themed
exhibits over the past quarter-century. The book will contain one
crucial correction:
“I accidentally put an ersatz
quote by Goethe into my first-ever
press release,” Ms. Hoffberger said.
“The quote was ‘Few people have
the imagination for reality,’ and it’s
been reprinted all over. A couple of
years [ago], I was contacted by the
Goethe Institute, and they said: ‘We
love that quote but we can’t find it in
any of his writings.”
“I called the friend who had
provided me with the quote and
said, ‘Where on earth did you get
that?’
He replied: ‘Well, Goethe should
have said it.’ ”
“People in Baltimore
might not realize
that AVAM isn’t just
completely different
from other museums
in Baltimore. It is
completely different
from any other museum
in the world, including
museums of visionary
art. AVAM — and
Rebecca — are
world-famous.”
— John Maizels,
founder of RAW Vision
Magazine, a London-based
publication of outsider art
AT A GLANCE
Age: 69
Hometown: Baltimore
Current residence: Owings Mills
Education: Attended Pikesville High
School, honorary doctorates from
the Maryland Institute College of
Art, McDaniel College, Pennsylvania
College of Art and Design and
Stevenson University.
Career highlights: Founder and
former director, American Visionary
Art Museum.
Civic and charitable activities:
Formerly active in The Baltimore
Urban League and Baltimore City
Chamber of Commerce, previously
on the board off the Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross Foundation.
Family: Divorced, two daughters.