Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Rabideau.
Justin, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m originally from upstate New York and have been working as an artist and arts professional for the past 16 years. I started out my career working at SUNY Plattsburgh for the Plattsburgh Art Museum and then found my way to Athens, GA receiving a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture at UGA. That was my first dip into the dynamic culture of the South and I was hooked from day one. Being an active artist in Athens, I showed fairly regularly in Atlanta and somehow knew then that I’d find my way back at some point.
After getting my MFA, I bounced around a bit following jobs at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York and the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida before returning to the Atlanta community in 2011. Like so many of my experiences in the art world, the position at the Zuckerman just appeared one day, seemingly out of nowhere. I remember seeing the job listing for the museum and saying to myself, “What’s the Zuckerman Museum?”. Turns out that there was a reason why I hadn’t heard of it because it wasn’t built yet. I was hired on as the Director of the museum to oversee the construction and restructuring of this brand-new art museum being built on the campus of Kennesaw State University in 2012 and it’s been an incredible experience ever since. My first day on the job I was introduced to the new would-be museum, a giant muddy hole in the ground. Five years later and four years of operations, I’m happy to say that we are doing some incredible work for our campus and Metro community inside a beautiful building.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There are always challenges but what I’ve always focused on is how we shape those challenges into successes. You can imagine that starting a brand-new museum comes with all sorts of challenges, a big one that comes to mind is simply building name recognition. For the first couple of years I’d be out meeting people and telling them about this new scrappy art museum out in Metro Atlanta and they would have no idea what I’m talking about! Thankfully that is happening less and less these days but I still meet people that haven’t heard of us. I want ALL of the Metro Atlanta community to know about the dynamic art programming that we are doing here at the Zuckerman….and all of it is totally free to the public. Every time I meet someone new and tell them about the ZMA I feel as if I’ve taken one more step in the right direction of getting the word out in the community about us and our drive to make the arts accessible, educational and engaging for all walks of life.
Zuckerman Museum of Art – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
At its heart the Zuckerman Museum of Art seeks to encourage the exchange of ideas and artful thinking to inspire our campus and community visitors while engaging them with the vibrant arts community of our region.
The ZMA presents work from our 6000+ piece permanent collection while regularly exhibiting contemporary works of various media by local and nationally-recognized artists. From the beginning, we realized that one thing that we could do and do really well was to contextualize the amazing artists that are creating in our southeastern region alongside artists and artistic movements that are happening on a national and global level. This has the effect of allowing our students and community to see the overlapping artistic approaches and relevant topics that are being explored both regionally and throughout the larger art world.
We also often offer a variety of artistic approaches, historical and archival materials and artistic styles within our exhibits. We believe that art should be accessible to all of our audiences. Often contemporary art, or art in general, can be intimidating. We believe that art is for all, and that all of us can learn from the power of art. As an educationally focused museum, we curate multiple touch-points within our exhibits and work closely with our education team and the resources available here on campus. The hope is that if we offer a variety of approaches within our exhibitions, then we can create multiple opportunities for exploration. If we can get our visitors interested in just one-piece art, that then opens the door to find a connection between that one object to the next and the next until they are seeing the exhibition in a completely new way or finding a new sense of engagement with the art on view.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
In just four years of operation, the ZMA has been named Best New Museum by Atlanta Magazine, received awards for exhibition development and inventive publication creation by the Southeastern Museum Conference Association, and most recently were given the honor of being selected for the inaugural Arts ATL Luminary Award for Social Discourse. We are proud of these accomplishments and they give us even more conviction to continue creating exciting, educational and engaging exhibitions and programs for our community.
Those awards are all incredible but ultimately when I think about success at the museum I think about the individuals whose lives have been impacted by the experiences they’ve had at the museum. We often have opportunities for our guests to leave comments about their experience…it’s so powerful when you have someone write that the exhibit or a work of art had a profound effect on them…that to me is real success. Another sign of success is our work with the KSU students. Our education team does a ton of tours and at the beginning of each tour we always ask what their previous experience has been in an art museum. Nearly every tour we have there are students telling us that the ZMA is their first experience in an art museum! To be a resource like that is true success in my mind.
I also have to give a shout-out to the ZMA’s front-line staff, all of whom are KSU students…they are incredible and they’ve been going on to do amazing things in our Atlanta art community using the training and experience they gained from working at the ZMA. We’ve had student worker that have gone on to work at places like the High, MOCA GA, MODA, Fern bank, and the Center for Puppetry Arts….helping others achieve their goals in life is truly a definition of success in my book.
Contact Info:
- Address: 492 Prillaman Way
Kennesaw, GA 30144 - Website: http://zuckerman.kennesaw.edu/
- Phone: 470-578-3223
- Email: zma@kennesaw.edu
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zuckermanmuseum/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZuckermanMuseum
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/zuckermanmuseum?lang=en
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bernard-a-zuckerman-museum-of-art-kennesaw
- Other: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60874-d7183639-Reviews-Zuckerman_Museum_of_Art-Kennesaw_Georgia.html
Image Credit:
Justin Rabideau and ZMA_1-ZMA_3:
Images courtesy the Zuckerman Museum of Art.
ZMA_4: Installation shot of Ben Coleman, Imagine! I am!, 2017. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by the Zuckerman Museum of Art.
ZMA_5: Willie Cole, Sole Flower, 2015. Courtesy of beta pictoris gallery/ Maus Contemporary, Birmingham, AL. Photo by the Zuckerman Museum of Art.
ZMA_6: Installation shot of Lynn Hershman Leeson, GMO Animals, Crops, Labs (The Infinity Engine), 2013. Courtesy of the artist and Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York, NY. Photo by the Zuckerman Museum of Art.
ZMA_7 (left to right): Installation shot of S. Patricia Patterson, Lion King, 2017; Nick Madden, I Hope There are Ghosts, 2017. Courtesy of the artists. Photo by the Zuckerman Museum of Ar
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