Laura Raicovich. Writer and Director of the Queens Museum
Laura Raicovich has a bowl with Fennel candy in her office. "It is like an indian snack from Jackson Heights. They have it usually in Indian restaurants when you leave, by the door." says Raicovich. She adds dry fruit to the mix.
Queens Museum as part of the Cultural Institution Group (cultural organizations of the City of New York in public facilities) is one of the big cultural institutions of the city in terms of receiving public funds, but it isn’t definitely the biggest in terms of pecuniary recollection. I asked Laura Raicovich about the salary inequities between institutions and the way the Department of Cultural Affairs distributes their funds.
“DCLA has much larger resources than the NEA, for example, but they also have limited resources.” Laughs. “They are many, many, many, many, deserving arts organizations, and projects, and programs.” Says Raicovich.
“It is not that everybody should get the same amount, that wouldn’t make sense either. I think that the city is wrestling with what that formula is. They are trying to make sure that is equitable along some scheme. I don’t know that they figured out yet what that scheme is but I think that is the idea [of the recent plan].” The Department of Cultural Affairs from New York City released a couple of week ago the very first ever Cultural Plan.
“[Managing a museum] is like being the CEO of a company where you don’t have control over the income. If you have a company that makes widgets, you sell the widgets to make money. If you don’t sell enough widgets, you don’t make the money. It is like being the CEO of that company, except, you don’t sell widgets.” Explains Raicovich.
“I think it is not the number, it is the gap.” She told me to focus on the middle paid positions. Raicovich says there is a big gap there.
How did Laura Raicovich get to seat where she sits?
Her retrospection sounded remarkably free-flowing and organic to me which is a very nice thing.
Laura studied politics and arts in Swarthmore College (1991–1995) and then got her MA in Liberal Arts from CUNY (2002–2006). She went on to be an urban fellow for the city. A program were recent graduates work in a city agency and they understand what it means to work in a municipality and what it means to work for New York City. "It was totally cool."
After spending five very formative years doing everything and anything at the Public Art Fund, she wanted to try and work in a "bigger place." Thanks to a friend, Raicovich was hired as a Press officer at the Guggenheim Museum.
She went on an opened two Guggenheim’s in Las Vegas with Lisa Dennison, Deputy Director and Chief curator at the time. They became friendly.
Later on, Dennison was the person who introduced Laura to Michael Govan, the man who ran the show at Dia: Art Foundation, at the time, acting as its Director.
Raicovich worked at Dia for 10 years (at the offices on 535 W 22nd St in Manhattan) holding an array of different positions, but Deputy Director was the longest she maintained. Then Philippe Vergne was hired as the new Director and Laura Raicovich had Giacomo. Her son.
When she professionally came back to the art realm, Laura felt it was time for a new change. One day, Raicovich was having a drink with her friend Anne Pasternak (President and Artistic Director of Creative Time, at the time) and she was telling her about this idea she had: Global Initiatives (what later would become Creative Time Reports) Raicovich couldn’t stop thinking about it. “Dia was wonderful but it was also very much in the art, art, it wasn’t about the engaging piece with the public.” Says Raicovich.
As Elizabeth Currid states in her fantastic book The Warhol Economy:
"It is the social life of creativity that is the central nexus between culture and commerce. It is in this realm that creative people get jobs, meet with editors and curators who write reviews and organize exhibitions and shows."
Some time after that meeting, Laura Raicovich joined Anne Pasternak, and Nato Thompson at Creative Time.
Laura Raicovich is a very creative and versatile woman. She likes switching gears between talking to an artist, then a board member, working on a grant application or working out an idea. This contrast and constant change keeps her excited. At the end of our conversation we started talking in Italian. Raicovich speaks this language perfectly. She spent three years of her childhood living in Milan, because of his father's job. She is the daughter and granddaughter of Istrian emigrants to the United States. “Istria was in northwestern Italy and after World War II it became part of Yugoslavia and they [Raicovich’s family] left and came here eventually.”
Her master's thesis is a book that changed her life. It was inspired by a Walter De Maria piece, The Lightning Field (1977), commissioned and maintained by the Dia: Art Foundation.
As you can see, every encounter we have is important, because it makes everything in life come full circle.
