Reflections on Museum Exchange’s Annual Off-Site
In the world of startups, outcomes tend to get documented. We track metrics, we take notes, we build decks. But some of the most meaningful things go unrecorded. Instead they continue on as a presence; a feeling or energy in the room, between people, shaping what’s possible. That’s what our recent off-site in Chicago was about.
It was the first time that our full team of 10 had gathered in person. We’ve shared countless Zoom calls and Slack messages, but something different happened when we all sat down together. The breakout sessions were technically “meetings,” but they felt like far more. They were charged, curious, full of momentum. People from different teams who had never collaborated directly—like engineering and editorial—were suddenly seeing how their diverse backgrounds and expertise could lead to unique insights and a better product for our institution and donor customers.
We saw great art. We visited extraordinary museums and collections. We heard from brilliant curators and inspiring collectors. And perhaps most importantly, we spent time learning about one another. Each interaction reminded us that meaning isn’t fixed; it shifts as context changes and (art) history is constantly being rewritten. That’s what Museum Exchange is here for.
Museum Exchange team visiting Johnson Publishing Company Archival Collection, Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago, IL.
At the Stony Island Arts Bank, we explored the personal vinyl collection of the late, legendary house DJ Frankie Knuckles as well as the complete library holdings of the former Johnson Publishing Company, publishers of Ebony and Jet magazines. The safekeeping and display of these archives represented an assertion: that every community deserves to see itself reflected, preserved, and celebrated. This powerful idea lies at the heart of the artist Theaster Gates’s Rebuild Foundation, which transforms abandoned public spaces in Chicago’s South Side—like this former bank turned community hub—into living monuments to Black art and culture.
At the Neubauer Collegium, we experienced Betye Saar’s work through the eyes of the center’s curator, Dieter Roelstraete. He animated the exhibition with his passion and knowledge, revealing how key objects resonated with the Los Angeles artist’s life and legacy, tying everything back to a fateful interaction that she had on a visit to Chicago’s Field Museum in 1974 with a Cameroonian chieftain’s robe adorned with tightly rolled balls of human hair. It was a powerful reminder of how a single artwork can profoundly shape one’s perspective or life’s course and how meaning shifts across time, place, and person. Dieter’s thoughtful tour also underscored how much our experience with objects is guided by those who care for them and carry their stories into the future.
Barbara Cooper, Unbound , 2025. Wood veneer, books, paper. Installation view: “A Tale of Today: Materialities,” Driehaus Museum, Chicago, IL, February 7 - April 27, 2025.
And at the palatial Gilded Age home cum museum, Driehaus Museum, it was a contemporary sculpture, Unbound (2025) by Barbara Cooper, that most struck me. A set of closed books, its undulating pages sealed shut, resting on an ornate table. The accompanying text read:
“Most of the everyday stories that made this building a home cannot be recovered. Nonetheless, they are still inscribed somewhere here, embedded in the materials…”
With the pervasiveness of technology and the desire to document everything, it’s easy to forget that the most powerful moments often cannot be captured. Those are the moments that create context. Those are the moments that drive our actions and where meaning begins.
At Museum Exchange, we talk a lot about what it means to steward artworks from private hands into public collections. Every work carries a story—the artist’s intent, the collector’s connection, the circumstances of a gift. And once that work enters an institution, it takes on new meaning. It joins a collective narrative, one ever changing. Likewise, these off-sites are a chance for our team to come together and to allow something larger to take shape.
Museum Exchange team in Chicago, April 2025. Top Row: David Moos, Kaitlin Morelock, Robert Wainstein, Caroline Stearns, América Salomón, Michael Darling. Bottom Row: Philip Soriano, Joanne Cohen, David Wen Riccardi-Zhu, Jack Mitchell.
