Get to know Yale leaders—Courtney J. Martin

Courtney J. Martin, ’09 Ph.D, joined the university in 2019 as the sixth director of the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA). Previously, she was deputy director and chief curator of Dia Art Foundation. A scholar of historical and contemporary art, Courtney earned her doctorate in the history of art at Yale, contributing to the YCBA’s award-winning 2007 exhibition, “Art and Emancipation in Jamaica.” Before pursuing her Ph.D., Courtney worked in the media, arts, and culture unit of the Ford Foundation in New York City. Following her doctorate, she conducted research and taught at Vanderbilt University and then joined the faculty of Brown University. In 2015, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Born and raised in Nashville, Courtney earned her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College. She currently lives in Woodbridge with her husband James.

What have been the opportunities and challenges of the pandemic for you?
It has been an interesting time and it is important to see both sides of it. Time with my husband has been amazing. We have been married since 2001 so we are just around the 20-year mark. This is the most time that we have spent together in our entire married lives. We have worked in different cities at many points in our marriage and we often have a lot going on in terms of travel and obligations. This uninterrupted time has been incredible.

Regarding the challenges, there was the very real technical challenge of getting everybody out of the Center safely with everything that they needed to transition to online work. All of us at YCBA have some degree of relationship to the collections depending on our positions. If you are a curator, you expect to see the paintings or the sculpture or the prints that you are working with every single day. Our custodians, who are technically employees of Central Facilities, are trained specifically to clean with art objects in mind. If you are an educator, you expect to be able to teach in front of those works. If you are the security staff, you expect to be engaged with the public that’s coming in to see the art. So, everybody has a relationship to something that was removed because of the pandemic. Museums are unique in this way—there is not a job that is disconnected from the art object. So, when you remove the art object, it’s natural to think, ‘what are we, who are we, if I don’t have this, how will I do my job?’ That has been a challenge, but the upside is that we have discovered new ways of engaging with our collections. We had a huge push between March and the end of June to launch a new website, which has facilitated our ability to continue functioning as a public art institution.

Is there a book that you’re reading now?

I am about to start reading three new books on Louis Kahn— “Our Days Are Like Full Years”; “Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy;” and “Louis Kahn: A Life in Architecture.” I am about to dig deep into these three books with our publications department by forming a reading group. For all of the weeks in February, we will read one of these books and discuss them together.

What do you think is the best advice a leader can receive?
I like to think of my job as a big puzzle. I do not mean this in terms of it being complex, but more in terms of sitting down and figuring out where the pieces go each day. What happens every day is a puzzle that you are working on and you might not get to it at the end of the day, it might take you weeks and months, or you might just find that one piece that fits. I also think the analogy of the puzzle is helpful because you can do a puzzle by yourself, but it is a lot easier and a lot more interesting to do it with other people.

Is there a particular musical artist that you listen to?
I have always listened to Prince— Prince Rogers Nelson. Prince has always been someone that has had the right music for the right time. Over last summer and into the fall, I was listening to his fourth studio album, Controversy. It came out in 1981 three years before Purple Rain, which was his first mainstream album. In ‘81, he was still a bit of an amateur; risk-taking and developing the persona that we will know of as Prince.

What are you most grateful for?
Friends and family. This is a hard time for people. And like many others, sometimes I am exhausted. Think about how much time we spend on screens now! I push myself to stay connected with friends and family. I make sure to speak to artists as much as I can. Working with artists gives me a lot of energy and, even more so, perspective.

Where would you go first If you were free to travel?
In my wildest dreams, I would be in a hot dry desert, preferably Morocco. I have not been there since 2004 or 2005. It’s been a long time, but I would go back if I could get on a plane tomorrow. I would also return to Brazil. But, practically, as soon as we are able to travel again, I have to go to London. Being connected to British artists, colleagues and museums is crucial to the work of the Yale Center for British Art. I cannot wait to return.

You are giving a dinner party and can invite five people living or dead. Who would you invite?
I would invite my four grandparents, none of whom are living. I would also invite my husband because he only met my grandmothers since my grandfathers predeceased them. The party would partially be to introduce my husband to my grandfathers, but it would be a great catch-up for all of us. All my grandparents were friends and I never got to engage equally with all four of them as an adult. I realize now that I knew them at the best part of their adulthood as active recent retirees. They were still young and very engaged in my life. And I in theirs. I look back at that time with my grandparents and think it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, especially because my father’s mother encouraged me to become art historian.

What’s helped you develop as a leader during your career—relationships, classes you’ve taken, making mistakes, hard work, all of the above?
All of the above. In 2019, I entered an invaluable program, the Center for Curatorial Leadership, which was founded by Yale alum Elizabeth Easton (‘89 Ph.D and Wilbur Cross Medal 2018) . It definitely shaped my recent development.  Having good relationships is key to a career. I know that people often say you should have good mentors, but they rarely explain  how you find them. I had great mentors at Yale.  Sometimes they are sitting right in front of you. Hard work is important, yes, but a lot of people work hard. It is more important to be constructive. Efficiency is something that I focus on and try to work through every week. It’s not easy. But when you practice it and then you see the payoff, you realize how invaluable it can be.

Do you have a favorite memory from childhood?
My father’s parents lived on a big farm and I can still see myself there, running down through the meadows.

Please tell me about the first time you… made a mistake on the job; reached an important goal; realized what you wanted to be when you grew up; were promoted.
I can remember the first time that I heard the word ‘curator.’ There was a way in which I can still hear that word being said to me, and it sounded like something much bigger than a job.

What would you say to your 12-year-old self?
I would tell her that she should not stop playing soccer. I loved playing soccer. It was so much fun. The field was a free space. I played through the end of high school, but then I never played again. Soccer taught me a lot about group dynamics.  Team sports are one of the ways that women develop those skills. Team sports help young girls figure out how to be a part of something and work as a unit, how to understand leadership, how to take responsibility because everyone has a job on the field. Even though I do not play anymore, I remain a Manchester City F.C. fan!

I would also tell her that she will never live in another city as beautiful as Nashville. It’s such a beautiful, beautiful city. It is green. It is hilly. Nashville has changed, of course, and that is part of my nostalgia. I would tell her to look around and really, really pay attention.

Photo credit: Argenis Apolinario