Love Is What You Want Ann Arbor Museum of Art

Joseph Rosa

Last week, Joseph Rosa — chief curator of architecture and blueprint at the Art Institute of Chicago Museum — was announced to be the new director of the University of Michigan Museum of Fine art.

But what appealed to Rosa about the job?

"A lot," said Rosa during a phone interview. "One is the university itself, with the different 
colleges, the deans and the faculty — it'southward a academy filled with amazing minds. And many times, small museums … don't have a faculty like that to draw from or exist part of. Then to take an amazing museum of that scale, information technology's one of the larger university museums in the nation, in 
the landscape of Ann Arbor and in the Academy of Michigan — information technology's really just ideal. Because there's so much deep thinking going on, so much 
scholarship going on."

Rosa comes to the job, of course, after UMMA's previous managing director, James Steward, oversaw the museum's large-scale, $41.9 meg expansion and renovation project, and then left to become director of the Princeton Academy Art Museum in January 2009.

"What I'thou interested in with the museum is building on what James did, and merely taking it to the next level," said Rosa. "Building relationships within the university'due south fabric is i (goal). And trying to … enhance the profile of the museum beyond the region. … To become a major vocalization in the museum field. And with the new space that James built, it just has to happen."

Rosa will begin working toward this vision for UMMA when he officially takes the reins in early July.

"At that place are a few things I've been thinking about, just I want to get there, set up the landscape, and see what makes 
sense in moving forward," said Rosa. "At that place's nothing broken there. Information technology's a wonderful staff; they've washed an amazing job this beginning yr of putting (UMMA) on the map and sustaining 
it in a way that I would say a lot of other places wouldn't be able to practise. They have such proficient, loyal delivery and talent at UMMA that I'm looking to go at that place every bit fast as I 
can so I can start collaborating with everybody to envision what vehicles volition exist to take us to these new levels."

Rosa noted that his role in UMMA's national search for a new director began final summer. 
 "It was actually a very well-organized search, and each visit congenital on the final, which allowed yous to
 kind of abound and fall in dearest with Ann Arbor, and be excited about what possibilities can take place at Michigan," Rosa said.

Of grade, Rosa's life in Ann Arbor will be markedly unlike from his life in Chicago, but UMMA'south new managing director says he's looking forward to the change of pace.

"When you live in bigger cities, you lot're operating in a big ecosystem anyhow," Rosa said. "Information technology's where 
you shop for food, where yous practice certain things, where you socialize with people you know. And I've lived in numerous cities earlier, but my married woman and I are looking forward to Ann Arbor. Information technology'south a great city for children — I have an 11
-year-erstwhile and a 2-and-a-one-half-year-sometime — and we're looking frontwards to being in the city for decades and assuasive them to grow up in a community that is intellectually frontwards-thinking, progressive, and nurturing, which is Ann Arbor."

In improver to this, the surface area's parks accept played a part in getting Rosa's family unit comfortable with the area. 
 "Our 2-and-a-half-year-former, every day of our last visit, had to get to Burns Park to play," Rosa said. "So we won 
him over with that. And our 11-yr-old really liked the landscape — the parks, the schools we visited — and so he was happy. And that fabricated (my married woman) and myself happy. So it was just a process of 
bringing my family to run into what I've been enjoying at different scales since September."

For now, Rosa is decorated preparing his Chicago home for auction, and helping with the upcoming transition at both AIC and UMMA.

"It's a lot," said Rosa. "Just it's a lot of
 heady things."

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.

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Source: http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/rosa-interview/