Name: John Hatfield
Age: 47
Occupation: Executive Director of Socrates Sculpture Park
City/Neighborhood: New York City, Queens

What project are you working on now?

I've inherited exciting exhibition programs for the upcoming year for Socrates Sculpture Park including “Civic Action,”  a partnership with the Noguchi Museum featuring the artists Natalie Jeremijenko, Mary Miss, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and George Trakas.  The park is also working with the Architectural League on a design build project entitled “Folly,” and in the near future Socrates will be selecting artists for their Emerging Artist Fellowship program to create and exhibit sculpture on site for the spring. 

After 17 years at the New Museum, where you were most recently deputy director, you're now taking the helm at Socrates Sculpture Park. What is it that drew you to the job?

There's no place in the country that combines a waterfront park, international film festival, educational programming, on-site art production, and a venue for public sculpture, while being situated in one of the most diverse areas in the world, Queens, New York. Oh, and it's also open free 365 days a year! It's a very special place and there are amazing opportunities in the future for Socrates to make an even more significant impact on the cultural and civic life of the city. That’s attractive.

Built over an abandoned landfill, Socrates is both an outdoor museum and the result of an urban renewal project. With recent initiatives like the Guggenheim Lab and the New Museum’s Festival of ideas, there’s been quite a lot of talk lately about the intersections of art, urbanism, and civic life. What do you consider to be the role of art in the public sphere?

There is no simple answer for the role art can play and the question in this context may not be just art (object, practice) in the public realm, but also the artists themselves, where they live, work, and engage other people.

Until now the artist real estate story has a well know pattern — artists and small cultural organizations move in, fix it up, make it vibrant, residential and commercial development comes, artists move out and the cycle starts again with a new location. But what we have learned, I hope, is that when cultural life is forced to move out, or is not part of the dialogue, then our urban environment risks becoming empty of content and unattractive (read: less valuable as well).  The projects and activity you see today between artists, architects, urban planners, designers, city officials, and developers is a recognition of mutual interests and I think this can be partly attributed to art/artists role in the public sphere.  There seems to be a willingness to engage artists as never before and it's a very exciting time of collaboration and community building.

To answer the question in a different way, art in the public realm can challenge political power, deliver pure eye-candy pleasure, inspire, agitate ideas, or be a mystery you accept and not solve.

In recent years, public art has increasingly transformed from majestic, permanent artistic gestures — like Mark di Suvero's "Joie de Vivre" in Zuccotti Park — to temporary, carry-in-carry-out installations like the Public Art Fund's "Andy Warhol" monument in Union Square. What do you make of this trend?

Permanence is a relative term when it comes to public art, since I am reminded of the monolithic Buddhist statues of Bamiyan, Afghanistan that were blown up by the Taliban and di Suvero's sculpture you mentioned has also had a few sites before Zuccotti park.  There are certain settings where the permanence of art makes sense and you desperately have to protect history. However, some artwork and artists are necessarily dependent on site specificity and a temporal condition — a drawing in the dirt or an action in a train station. Personally I embrace the trend toward more “carry-in-carry out” projects in public spaces because it recognizes a greater diversity of what public art can be and what artists are doing today. On a practical note, once you declare an artwork permanent there's no going back, as opposed to taking a more wait-and-see approach which takes into consideration time and response. 

Before working in museums, you received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art. How do your experiences as an artist inform your work as an arts administrator?

Having been an artist enables me to empathize with the anxieties, ambitions, ego, and perspectives of an artist a bit more. I can also relate to the rush that accompanies the process of making.  I do appreciate the courage and effort to put something out into to the world that did not exist before.

The most soul crushing experience is to encounter an arts administrator that lacks imagination or won't embrace the absurd. Identifying with artists keeps the practical in its place. 

What's the last show that you saw?

Sarah Sze at Asia Society

What's the last show that surprised you? Why?

Alexander McQueen. The hype and wait made me skeptical but it's great when your expectations and skepticism get destroyed by truly amazing work.

What's your favorite place to see art?

In people's homes and studios — and outside of course.

Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?

From artists and colleagues — looking, listening, reading.     

Do you collect anything? 

Mostly artist multiples.... and the occasional unique piece splurge.

What's the last artwork you purchased?

A ceramic piece by Jeffry Mitchell — a friend and very good artist from Seattle. Bought Tauba Auerbach's pop-up book project from Printed Matter which is spectacular. “The Thing” yearly subscription ($200), a little brown box comes four times a year and I get goosebumps.  

What's the weirdest thing you ever saw happen in a museum or gallery? 

Having worked for the New Museum for so long I saw quite a few weird things both in the galleries and back of house.  Not exactly the weirdest, but certainly memorable, was when I helped Bob Flanagan get naked in the gallery and lay him on a bed of nails for his birthday. His partner, Sheree Rose (aka dominatrix) put a penis cake on his crotch and we cut it up and ate it to celebrate. Lying naked on nails actually does hurt and Bob's condition with cystic fibrosis, wearing his portable oxygen mask and all skin and bones made the risks of puncturing and injury very high. But Bob was radiating and happy — I was sweating and anxious. It definitely ranks up there for one of the weirdest and sweetest things I ever participated in.

What's your art-world pet peeve?

That kindness, or at least being empathetic, isn't a more popular way of conducting yourself. Having worked on the 9/11 memorial, my pet peeves have become a bit sharper in terms of the insularity, obliviousness and hubris of the art world. Also, people using intentionally obscure references in very loud social settings.

What's your favorite post-gallery watering hole or restaurant?

Home.

Do you have a gallery/museum-going routine?

No routine but it would be nice to have the time to have one. I see as much as possible according to recommendations and proximity.

Know any good jokes?

Jesus and two art critics are in a canoe fishing... never mind it’s not that funny. 

What's the last great book you read?

“Lapham's Quarterly.” It's not a book but the closest literary thing I am able to read and consistently inspiring.  Tom Finkelpearl's “Dialogues in Public Art.” 

What work of art do you wish you owned?

The list is long with Phillip Guston, Agnes Martin, Francis Picabia, Paul Thek.... and I've always coveted “Untitled (Perfect Lovers)” by Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

What would you do to get it?

I would go to Staples, buy two office clocks and synchronize them to the same time. Morally I just couldn't do it knowing that it wasn't done by him. Tempting though.

What international art destination do you most want to visit?

Inhotim, Marfa, Istanbul, Moscow.

What under-appreciated artist, gallery, or work do you think people should know about?

Come to Socrates Sculpture Park and see.

What are your hobbies?

Sports reading, watching, playing.