The Revolving Museum Does Artists A Good Turn

By Gwendolyn Holbrow

Jerry Beck is a man with a mission. Lots of missions, actually. Figuring out why people make art. Creating his own conceptual art. Empowering more people to make art. Providing support for working artists. Broadening the definition of art. Promoting interdisciplinary art. Celebrating cultural diversity. Reclaiming neglected urban spaces. Building community. It’s a long list, but the missions all share one message: art belongs to everyone, and it can change the world. The key ingredient is heart, says Beck, “You put your heart into stuff and people feel it.” For two decades, Beck has been combining abandoned spaces, social activism and plenty of heart to free art from the confines of gallery, museum and art school and make the world a better place.

Beck grew up in South Florida, near the Seminole Reservation, and his father ran a penny arcade, influences he sees as crucial to his own artistic development. While he incorporated the carnival atmosphere into his personal esthetic, he also adopted the Native American view of art as a spiritual practice, integrated into daily life. The vacant buildings created by the relentless development of his Florida neighborhood fascinated him as well, and he retains a passion for revitalizing underutilized spaces. “It’s like finding the medium you’re drawn to,” says Beck. “I was drawn to spaces, always.” In art school, he began using abandoned spaces as his found objects, creating installations in them and inviting faculty and the community.

When Beck moved to Boston, his job as a Museum of Fine Arts guard helped him distill these past experiences into a clearer sense of purpose. “The museum culture was sterile. I felt there was something missing,” he says. “Who’s the audience? Who’s the authority? I got into a lot of the issues around the museum culture.” So he imagined an anti-museum.

The Revolving Museum opened in 1984, in twelve abandoned railroad cars. Since then, installation venues have included Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, a customized ice cream truck called the I Scream Art Truck, and the Big Dig. The museum’s name includes “evolving,” and also suggests that our whole revolving planet is the museum. Wherever the nomadic museum pops up, it is committed to serving and including a diverse community, with special focus on interactivity and urban youth. “People who have never made art before are in a museum,” Beck says. “I try to eliminate the hierarchy between who’s an artist and who’s not.”

In 2002, commercial development displaced the museum from Boston’s Fort Point district, nearly extinguishing it. Fortunately for artists everywhere, the city of Lowell welcomed Beck’s energy and enthusiasm with open arms. His latest reclaimed space is a handsome brick building, built in 1859 to house the Lowell Gas and Light Company, on a cobblestone intersection in downtown Lowell. “We have a place of celebration and education that no one’s going to take away,” he says.

Beck sees the museum as a vehicle to support area artists, a population he calls underserved. “There’s not enough opportunity to show your work. There’s not enough critical support. There’s not enough camaraderie,” he says. More missions. And, as hundreds of artists of all ages know, Beck puts his money, and his heart, where his mouth is. That’s why the Revolving Museum is sponsoring the Middlesex Beat’s Open Studio Grant. “It’s the community’s museum,” says Beck. “I want to hand the museum over to whoever wants it.”

Images courtesy of the Revolving Museum

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