Change is Coming: Bannon Redux A Museum Director is Back—with Big Plans in Buffalo Spree

Change is Coming: Bannon redux: A museum director is back—with big plans

A long and winding road has led Dr. Anthony Bannon back to the director’s chair at the Burchfield, albeit with big changes since he first shepherded the art collection on the campus of Buffalo State College back in 1985. The institution has a new name—the Burchfield Penney Art Center (BPAC)—for one, and a shiny signature building on Elmwood Avenue for another. Bannon, who left Buffalo for Rochester in 1996, spent the next sixteen years restoring, elevating, and expanding the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. Just when he started making plans to step down, maybe to work on a couple of outstanding book projects, came the irresistible offer last spring to head the new and improved BPAC. For a guy who once dreamed of being a Woods Hole biologist, it’s been quite a journey.

We interrupt your retirement to bring you a new heavy-duty assignment. What happened to the idea of segueing into another, quieter stage of life?
The weird thing is, at this stage of my life, I have never been hotter in my career. When I was leaving Eastman, I did not expect to have inquiries, but a couple of offers did come in over the transom, and here we are. Actually, my wife [Bannon is married to Elizabeth Stewart, a psychologist in the state office for developmental disabilities] was being transferred to Buffalo, a totally separate turn of events. I took the job at BPAC, and we found a house in Williamsville, one that Elizabeth had spent time in many years ago and had always loved. It seems like coming back here was what we were supposed to do. We are tickled to be back.

What’s different about your arts center leadership this time around?
I cannot be the director I was sixteen years ago. My charge then was to build a collection. Our first shows revolved around a young, emerging artist and then an established artist, as well as shows featuring an artist of color and someone who was challenged. We were to serve all people here, and then we brought in Charlie Penney’s enormous collection with its focus on Western New York artists, and the Roycroft pieces that drew in the design element. Now we move on from the fine work of Ted Pietrzak, who brought us into this space. Now we are summoned to start looking out, and to serve the world. It is so clear to me what needs to be done. This staff and this board are so extraordinary, and given that we have this new building, with what’s going on in this city, and what’s going on in the world—to occupy this space, and do it with integrity; that’s our direction.

Could you be more specific?
How do our programs and exhibitions accept the challenge of this new building? The spaces summon exhibit strategies that must be remarkably different from those at the Albright-Knox. What we will do is create leadership events here. We are going to commit to electronic media, and all the opportunities the internet provides—taking all the accomplishments we have, and sharing what we do. For example, we are the center for conversations about watercolor. We will emphasize more and more education. We will be blogging on a variety of subjects, engaging leadership thinking in Buffalo to have conversations across disciplines. More concerts—we have the capacity to do much more, including establishing an alliance with the new media program at Alfred. We will be moving on from self-publishing—the projects we do are going to be sufficient to attract a commercial publisher. We’re going to tour everything—as you know, Heat Wave in A Swamp [a Charles Burchfield show] was a touring show recently. There should be one Heat Wave after another—it should be expected. Time to start thinking about the world. I am in talks with the State Department right now about bringing Rogovin to Africa. I am fortunate to have global connections.This is a level of excellence that is not local. You want to deal with hobbyists? Look elsewhere.

Wow. So you're ratcheting everything up, but what about a local focus? What about attention to what's right in front of us, even as you look at a bigger, global picture?
This job is three things, really. In addition to serving as a research professor and directing the museum, I am also charged with working with the president of Buffalo State College, Dr. Aaron Podolefsky, and our board has to be vigorous in service of this region and the city. Our notion is to focus on the polyglot richness of the near West Side. We have an opportunity to explore the cultural richness of the neighborhood, not just in terms of traditional exhibitry, but to open up our online space, to partner with other organizations—for example, those serving refugees—and to find a way that we can help families. My background is in the theory of culture. You’re not going to solve any issue until you understand the culture of any group that is locking or unlocking the gate.

What is the culture of any leadership group?
Answer these questions, and you get a better chance at breaking the chains that hold our city back. The cultural and the social are two seats on the seesaw, and they have to be in balance.

Sounds like you bring a broad range of life experiences to the table. Do you think many people in town recall your days as a reporter for the Buffalo Evening News? Tell us about that, and how you came to Buffalo in the first place.
I was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, where my mom was a nurse and my dad a professor at Dartmouth. He taught physiological optics at the Dartmouth Eye Institute, where he studied the visual nature of reality. I was an only child. The college was like the church in my family’s eyes, with its rituals and benediction. Great men from academe were our houseguests. Lord Charnwood, a British politician and author, taught me how to wiggle my ears. George Wald, the American scientist who went on to win a Nobel Prize, taught me about the stars. For me, it was a halcyon time. When I was ten, the institute closed. Dad taught at Columbia for two years, then went to work for American Optical in Southbridge, Massachusetts. Midway through my junior year in high school, he was transferred to Buffalo, where he taught at UB medical school and did research. I finished up at Williamsville High School, and went on to St. Bonaventure University as a biology major. I went to Syracuse for graduate work in science, with nearly enough credits for an English degree, but I left—taught at Father Baker’s for two years while freelancing for the News and the Courier-Express. I’d fallen in love with writing and writing about the arts. I took a job at the News, and eventually became the art critic. I was there for nineteen years, always doing other things—studied filmmaking, hung out with the Hallwalls people, made some films. Got my master’s in humanities from UB [where Bannon later earned a doctorate in English]. When I left the newspaper, Dr. D. Bruce Johnstone, then president of Buffalo State College, invited me to apply for the job of Burchfield director. I was there until 1996, when I went to work at the Eastman House. They’re proud of their gardens there, and my science background came in handy. I was the only candidate who, when asked how the grounds should be cared for, responded that they should apply the values of an arboretum—specimens should be listed as objects in the collection. They had no choice but to hire me! We loved our time in Rochester. Now I’m eager to be effective in serving the cultural diversity of Buffalo—we are thrilled to be back. I love coming to work in this building every morning—it’s a wonderful opportunity for stewardship. We need to work on the grounds, and pay loving, smart attention to this space—and I’m still writing. Every summer I write about ten reviews for Chautauqua—I love that. It’s like a busman’s holiday. I’m a little slower, but the writing is fresh, and I think I’ve gotten over my fits of pretension.

You’ve had a number of jobs over the years—what did you like best?
I don’t look back. I like to live with as many nerve endings operating in the moment as possible; to try to maximize the wonder of the moment we are in. The better you get at that, the more fun it is. I am nostalgic, to be sure—I cannot, for example, leave behind some of the furniture that belonged to my grandparents. There are chairs that still have on them the DNA of people I loved. So I do look back fondly on things, but, in terms of life decisions, where I am most of the time is right in the middle of a moment.

Say you hadn’t returned to BPAC. Where might you be right now?
In a storefront, in a small town, selling my collection of old books and vinyl. But my prices would be too high, so I wouldn’t sell many, which is okay, because I really don’t want to sell them.              

Maria Scrivani is a Buffalo native with an interest in local history and people who make a difference.

This is part two of a two-part feature on the changes coming to Buffalo's major art galleries. To read Bruce Adams's discussion of the departure of Louis Grachos from the Albright-Knox after ten years, click here.