Many years ago, while I was in graduate school working on my master's thesis, my advisor, Cindy Fink, then Director of Marketing at the Cincinnati Museum of Art, encouraged me to reach out to her friend and colleague, Philip Bahar who was then with MCA Chicago.
It didn't take long to realize that many of the museum ideas and practices I found most inspiring at the time, including initiatives such as farmers' markets at museums, had their roots in Philip's work and thinking at the Walker.
Since those early conversations, I've been fortunate to count Philip as both a mentor and a friend. It was a pleasure to catch up with him to discuss his new role and work at Michigan State University's Broad Art Museum. The following are excerpts from our conversation.
Adam Rozan: Philip, one thing that has always struck me is how few museum directors come from marketing. I can think of you and Elizabeth Pierce (Cincinnati Museum Center), but it's still a pretty short list. Is that changing?
Philip Bahar: Slowly, but I actually think it's the wrong question. It's less about whether someone comes from marketing and more about whether they lead with an audience mindset.
The moment you start asking who your audiences are, what matters to them, what exhibitions will resonate, why they'll become members, or why they'll support your institution, you're already having a marketing conversation. A curator can lead that way. An educator can lead that way. A marketer can lead that way. What matters is understanding the people you're trying to serve.
AR: That's interesting because you're using "marketing" much more broadly than most people do. You're not talking about advertising or even communication channels, like social media. You're talking about understanding people first.
PB: Exactly. Marketing certainly includes communications, media relations, and digital strategy, but it starts much higher than that with the museum’s mission, program, and institutional brand.
What's the story your museum is trying to tell? What does it stand for? How does that story come to life through exhibitions, programs, education, and the visitor experience?
Every museum serves a different community. The audiences I worked with at the Walker Art Center are very different from the audiences I serve today at the Broad. The framework is the same, but every community has different needs, different cultural resources, and different ways of connecting with a museum.
Adam Rozan: So before you decide what exhibitions to present or what programs to offer, you have to understand who you're serving.
At a university museum, that's a fascinating challenge because your audiences include students, faculty, staff, alumni, families, and the surrounding community. Once you know who you're trying to reach, you can start asking, What are we doing for them? What aren't we doing?
PB: Exactly. Everything starts with audience needs. At Michigan State University, students are a primary audience, but faculty and staff are also essential. At the same time, we're the only art museum within roughly a sixty-mile radius, so we serve communities across a large part of mid-Michigan. These audiences have different needs and expectations, and we have to think carefully about how we can best serve each.
AR: Wow. So, the Broad’s zone of impact is sixty miles. That’s your area, and therefore your work connects with the audiences within those sixty miles. That’s helpful, as you can then figure out who those specific audiences are.
PB: Yes. Who are we trying to serve? Who do we want to reach more effectively? What impact are we trying to have?
Once you've answered those questions, every exhibition, every partnership, and every program should reinforce those priorities in some way. That's what allows an organization to move in a clear direction instead of simply adding more activity.
For the MSU Broad Art Museum we start with our educational mission, actively serving students and the learning that happens at MSU. We then turn to our community to see where we can have the greatest impact. We’ve identified mid-Michigan families and youth as central, they’re our future audiences.
AR: One example that really impressed me is your teacher program. You're working with K–12 teachers each semester, helping them use art to teach everything from history to social studies to math. Instead of reaching a classroom of students, you're reaching thousands through the teachers themselves.
PB: Exactly. Rather than simply teaching students when they visit the museum, we're helping teachers use object-based learning with their students to bring art into their classrooms every day. Once we saw how effective the program was, the question became, How do we grow it? How do we connect it to field trips? How do we expand its reach to serve a wider swathe of schools? We’re building on what's already making a difference.
If every department is doing excellent work but none of it connects, you're just creating activity. We want each initiative to strengthen other aspects of the museum. That's how an organization can build a more holistic program and develop momentum.
AR: Another thing that surprised me was learning that roughly sixty-five students work throughout the museum in every facet of the museum, every semester. And they're not all art history majors.
PB: Not even close. They're studying business, communications, education (we have many studying to be teachers), design, engineering—you name it. They work in marketing, visitor engagement, curatorial, collections, exhibition preparation, communications. The museum simply couldn't operate without our student workers.
What's exciting is that many of those students never imagined themselves working in a museum. They come here, discover new interests, develop professional skills, and sometimes find an entirely new career path. Or, they develop transferrable skills that will be beneficial, regardless of their career trajectory: collaboration, public speaking, project management. That's one of the most rewarding parts of working at a university museum, having an impact on young adults as they shape who the are and who they will become.
AR: What’s an MSU Broad story that exemplifies this student involvement?
PB: We had two student curatorial fellows who created an exhibition from beginning to end.
We had a short gap between exhibitions this summer, as we are reinstalling the entire museum for the fall, and our Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs challenged them to develop a show. They built an exhibition around Andy Warhol—we have a number of prints and a selection of his polaroid portraits. They selected the works, wrote the labels, and worked with our production team to install the work, which was largely done by student preparators!
It's an opportunity very few students have anywhere. They weren't just studying curatorial practice, they were actively curating.
AR: This isn't simply an art museum. It's a place where students studying countless other disciplines can find meaningful work.
PB: We ask one question over and over again: How can the museum become what the university and community need it to be? This frames the conversation and directly impacts how we approach our work.
Yes, we're thinking about exhibitions, collections, and programming, like every museum. But we're also asking how faculty use the museum and its collections, how students use it (for study and play), and how we become an essential part of teaching and research rather than simply a place people visit. That's the opportunity.
AR: I love that phrase: How can the museum become what the university and community need it to be?
It feels like a very different way of thinking about museums.
PB: I think it is, to a degree. Museums often define themselves by what they have and what they present. We're trying to define ourselves by what we can uniquely do at a university museum and as a contemporary art museum.
That's why we've reimagined how we display our collection. Instead of keeping it in storage, we created the CORE, our Center for Object Research and Engagement. Visitors can explore hundreds of works from the collection at any given time. The collection is constantly changing, constantly supporting teaching, and constantly creating new conversations.
I think museums have an important role in addressing contemporary issues. Artists are responding to the world around them. They're asking important questions, and museums should create space for those conversations.
But for me, it always starts with the art.
The artwork can't simply illustrate a political argument. The artist's vision has to lead. When that happens, the larger conversations emerge naturally. If you begin with issues instead of the artwork, I think you lose something central to the power of art and artists.
Adam Rozan: Listening to you, it feels like the museum becomes whatever the university needs it to become. Sometimes classroom. Lab. Research center. Gathering place. Etc.
Philip Bahar: That's exactly how I think about it. We have responsibilities to the campus, but we also have responsibilities to the broader community as one of MSU’s public-facing organizations. The museum has to be creative and flexible to successfully serve both. Sometimes that means presenting compelling art. Sometimes that means welcoming families into the creative process. And, sometimes that means working with faculty on new research that can be shared with the public.
Adam Rozan: It also seems like the museum has become a place where ideas circulate. Faculty are talking with curators. Students are talking with educators. Artists are talking with scientists. It feels much more collaborative than the traditional model of a museum developing an exhibition on its own.
Museums have spent years building social media strategies, and now AI is changing how people discover information. At the same time, it feels like people are craving in-person experiences more than ever. Where do you think museums should be investing their energy?
PB: Social media still matters. Especially on a university campus, you have to be where the students find what’s going on. But social media doesn't create the deepest relationships. It lets people know something exists. It encourages them to show up. The real experience begins when they're physically here.
I think that's become even more obvious since COVID. People miss community. They miss being together. Digital spaces have value, but they're different from standing next to someone, looking at a work of art, and having a conversation. That’s where our real energy should go, finding ways to connect with our visitors, our learners.
AR: I’ve also noticed and read about efforts to move away from smartphones. A surprising number of younger people I've talked with are stepping away from social media.
PB: I've seen that in my own family. Two of my three children have largely left social media.
That doesn't mean museums should abandon those platforms. It simply means we should understand what they're good at—and what they're not. Social media might get someone through the door. But, the museum and the art shapes the experience. We create places where people can explore unfamiliar ideas together.
You may know nothing about the Mekong River delta, which was an exhibition and topic we recently explored, when you walk in, but when you leave, you've learned about one of the world’s great water ways, encountered other cultures through art, and hopefully see the world and your own community anew.
That's something social media alone can't provide.
AR: If you had to choose one word to describe what museums should prioritize right now, what would it be?
PB: I'd probably say welcome. Or maybe community. I think about what Stephen Weil wrote years ago—that museums must shift from being about something to being for somebody. That idea feels more relevant than ever.