Scott Rothkopf always knew his love of art would lead him to New York. He once interned at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Now, he's leading it into the future. NY1's Budd Mishkin filed the following One on 1 profile.
In so many lives, there is a moment that determines a course for the rest of that life. For Scott Rothkopf, it came early, in a building designed by the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
"When I was a child, I took acting classes at the Dallas Theater Center, which is a building that Wright designed, and I became eventually more interested in Frank Lloyd Wright and architecture than I was in acting or the theater," Rothkopf says.
That early love of Frank Lloyd Wright eventually led to a love of art and artists. Now?
"I think I have the best job in the world, and I feel really lucky to have it, although I'm sure many of the New Yorkers you talk to will say the same thing," Rothkopf says.
Rothkopf is the chief curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art, known as a home for both established and emerging artists.
He joined the Whitney in 2009 and ascended to his current position in 2015, the year the museum moved to the Meatpacking District.
In this new setting not far from the High Line, Rothkopf has his own line to walk, enticing both the art aficionado and the average museumgoer.
"The Whitney is a museum that's always spoken at a very high level to members of the art world, contemporary artists, to people in the know," he says. "But of course, since we've been down here in the Meatpacking District, we've welcomed over 1 million people. So it's important for us to be welcoming to them."
The chief curator of the Whitney wears more than a few hats.
"I'm making shows, working with artists," he says. "Yes, it does involve being a psychologist, a talent wrangler, convincing donors to part, often with very valuable, very fragile works."
We saw many of Rothkopf's talents on display: leading a Facebook tour of an exhibit that he curated called "Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney's Collection"; promoting a new exhibit called Dreamlands to the media; connecting with the exhibit's curator; schmoozing with the museum's fans, supporters and, hopefully for Rothkopf, future donors.
But perhaps most importantly, Rothkopf sees himself as the artist's advocate, making informed suggestions without clipping the artist's wings.
"If you come at them like a scholar, a curator who has some kind of idea of what's right and what's wrong, that can be off-putting or intimidating to an artist," he says. "And I kind of have to think of myself as a co-collaborator or conspirator with them, that we're in the trenches trying to figure things out."
The chief curator's job can be filled with challenges.
"If you're trying to think about how to get a painting out of a castle where it doesn't fit down the stairs, do you need to bring a crane? Do you need to make sure that the size of airplane you need to bring that painting on without folding or rolling the painting can land in nearest airport? Maybe it can't land in Switzerland. It has to land in Luxembourg," Rothkopf says.
That was certainly the case with an exhibit Rothkopf dreamed of, showcasing the American artist Jeff Koons two years ago.
"You have things that are extremely valuable, you have things that are unwieldy, big, and you have things that are fragile, whether they are made out of porcelain or glass. Unwieldy, fragile, high-value objects that are owned by very wealthy and powerful people is a complicated negotiation," he says.
Rothkopf keeps some mementos of the Jeff Koons exhibit in his office. It's also where he plans future exhibits,
Sure, the Whitney uses the latest in technology. But in the first stages of creating an exhibit, Rothkopf opts for a storyboard.
"For me, because I don't have a screen that would allow me to see all of this at once, I still like this kind of tactile rearranging, comparison with different things across time," he says. "There is something a little bit old-fashioned about the way that at least I still work."
Scott Rothkopf grew up in Dallas in the 1980s and '90s, much more Frank Lloyd Wright than Friday Night Lights.
"People were very respectful of my interest, even if it was a little bit outside of the mainstream for a teenage boy, let's say," he says. "And my friends, maybe they were more interested in sports than I was, but they never made fun of me. They supported my interests."
His passion for Frank Lloyd Wright was so great that he and his mother took road trips all over the United States to see the architect's work.
"It was actually a time in our family life, my parents were getting divorced, and I think it was a great way for my mom and I to do something together," Rothkopf says. "And I would make notebooks of the places I had been. It was a really wonderful time in my life, and with my mom, to be able to share this art appreciation together."
There were also annual trips to New York, laying the groundwork for his future plans.
"The most favorite part of my summers was coming to visit my grandparents on Long Island, coming into the city, looking at these museums, feeling somehow deep inside that I always wanted to get to New York, that that wasn't really negotiable," Rothkopf says.
Rothkopf studied art and architecture at Harvard, where in graduate school, he got his curating feet wet, organizing an exhibit of photographs at the Harvard Art Museum by the conceptual artist Mel Bochner.
After graduate school, his first job in New York's art world was at a magazine, ArtForum.
"In a way, that was kind of a detour," Rothkopf says. "And at the time, I actually worried that if I did that, it might hurt my chances of becoming a museum professional because it seemed maybe not the normal line that one followed."
But Rothkopf soon realized that his job as senior editor gave him entree to meet artists, curators, gallery owners and writers. Now, he sees similarities between editing and curating.
"If I have to present the retrospective of an artist, and I have to show their 35 years of career, I'm actually editing their work into a story that fits in a space," he says. "So the idea of storytelling, of a narrative that people encounter, whether it's on the page or in the gallery, there's some relationships."
Rothkopf is 40, engaged to be married and far too busy for any extended self-reflection on his success.
Mishkin: I dreamed it, and the dream was realized.
Rothkopf: Well, I think that that is a great thought and I should have it more often. (laughs)
But as the curatorial leader of a New York City institution that is both old and young, Rothkopf's influence is growing, reflected in a 2014 article in Interview Magazine.
Mishkin: "For many in New York, the man who seems to be leading us into the future is 38-year-old Whitney curator Scott Rothkopf."
Rothkopf: Who wrote that? My mom?
Mishkin: But no pressure though.
"I don't feel the pressure of living up to a statement like that, per se. I feel the pressure of making this museum as great as I can and delivering this program," Rothkopf says. "The stakes have only gotten higher. We've moved downtown. We have a lot more visitors. We have a bigger budget. We have a bigger staff. How do we keep everyone interested in us and excited and passionate about it and kind of maintain a sense of our core ideas and our founding ethos while we are growing bigger? And that's a real balancing act."