The first time Richard Andrews saw art, it was because a friend of his urged him to get in a car that was rushing toward the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "You have to see it before the bastards take it down!" she told him. He was a teenager. The exhibition was the censored Ed Kienholz show of sculptures including Backseat Dodge.
Andrews became an artist, but eventually he stopped making his own work--and as if to make that completely worth it, pursued supporting the work of other artists with a vengeance.
After 20 years of working with contemporary artists on commissions, installations, and touring exhibitions as director of the Henry Art Gallery, Andrews is about to step down.
But he remembers it all, and he has words of advice (though he'd never call them that) for whoever it is that takes over Seattle's contemporary art museum.
(And as a bonus, he talks about his current work with the Skystone Foundation, which is supporting the creation of James Turrell's Roden Crater in Arizona, seen below in two interior views and from above, in a lithograph--listen to the podcast to understand what you're seeing.)
