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Friday February 18, 2005

Back in black

Magnes financially stable, planning for future move

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

For Berkeley’s Judah L. Magnes Museum, the trip to the promised land is as brief as a jaunt from Russell Street to Allston Way.

That’s about 2.25 miles. Expect it by 2009.

When the museum officially hired Terry Pink Alexander as its new executive director late last month, the staff and board expressed the belief that she is the leader who will be able to make the transition happen between the Magnes’ current home and the prime property it owns downtown.

In Alexander, Magnes officials feel they’ve hit the trifecta: She has longstanding local ties, a background in fine art and a history of major league fund-raising.

The museum has completed an agreement to lease out its downtown property to U.C. Berkeley’s Bancroft Library for three years, with hopes of razing and rebuilding by 2009.

Between now and then, Alexander hopes she can pull off a 180-degree turnaround from the shaky days during and after the Magnes’ split with the Contemporary Jewish Museum. During the tempestuous merger, the Magnes was virtually stripped of its curatorial staff and closed for the entire summer of 2002, not reopening with regular hours until October 2003.

With 10 full-time staff and five contract employees, the Magnes is nearly up to its pre-merger total of 18 staffers. And this year’s budget is $1.6 million, up from $1.3 million last year.

As a result, the museum is currently displaying four separate exhibitions: a collection of Sephardic artifacts, a retrospective of the work of Soviet Jewish architect Lazar Khidekel, a display of artwork featuring Jews and books, and an installation on Jews in the Gold Country by artist Ann Chamberlain.

James Leventhal, the museum’s director of development, proudly notes that the Magnes finished in the black this year. With money coming in and an augmented budget, the museum can cease relying solely on its collections for exhibits and will be able to mount traveling exhibits or purchase new works.

So, Alexander presents a succinct message: We’re back.

“We have a very unique position here in the community. People come from all over to see our exhibits,” said Alexander, a member of Oakland’s Temple Sinai for the past 23 years. She last served as the West Coast executive director of the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

“We have a long legacy and tradition Seymour and Rebecca [Fromer] founded back in the ’60s. We need to carry it forward to future generations.”

In addition to keeping the doors open to a viable museum, Alexander has already begun ramping up efforts towards the long-term transition to Allston Way.

Within her first three weeks on the job, she’d already met with heavy-hitters in the community, including officials from the Walter and Louise Haas Fund and Reutlinger Foundation, and Daniel Koshland, a prominent U.C. Berkeley science professor and philanthropist.

“I was brought in and I hit the ground running,” she said with a smile. Planning for the eventual move is “kind of the scaffolding on which we build out this expansive course we’re on.”

Alexander and others are quick to point out that the drive for a new Magnes is not a vanity project.

Alla Efimova, the museum’s chief curator, noted that much of the Magnes’ inventory is stored, inconveniently, off-site “in conditions that are not completely adequate.”

The new building, which is currently a warehouse, would also have much more exhibition space as well as programming space and, perhaps, an auditorium.

“The focus is on the programming in the building, not so much the statement the façade of the building makes,” she said. “We’re looking for a well-developed inside.”

Alexander is looking ahead, and, she contends, the Magnes has always been on the up-and-up.

“We’ve always been on an expansive path. This museum was started in a room over the Parkway Theatre. Within a couple of years it was two rooms.

“In the next couple of years, they bought this property at Russell Street. … Right now, the museum is moving forward, and I’m someone who understands how to bring in the funding we need to move our programs ahead and continue to grow.”

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